[Official] Mexican Grand Prix 2019: Grand Prix Weekend Thread

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by ascarracinguk

Well you say that, but vettel only had to close 2.5 seconds on 14 lap fresher rubber....

....I’d say that’s more a measure of Hamilton’s ability to make the tyres last than ferraris inability to get the strategy correct

As was pointed out by Brundle, when the tyres wear to a certain amount now, they don't go off a cliff anymore - they haven't for years. The hards plateau and even out. Since you needed to be a second a lap faster to overtake, even with the DRS, this 2.5 second gap meant nothing. By the time Vettel was even remotely close, the tyres had equalised.

Mercedes knew this. They were playing that game during Friday when Lewis was saying 3 stop race. They absolutely knew what would happen with those hard tyres. Ferrari had no idea what to do - which is why when Vettel questioned them on the radio they just responded that they were thinking about it.

Ferrari meanwhile tried to give Vettel a tyre advantage that was never going to happen, thus giving up time earlier in the race. And the less said about Leclercs strategy the better.

It was a brilliant bit of mind games by Mercedes all week, a perfectly executed strategy, and brilliantly driven by Lewis. They started that game on Friday, and Ferrari played right into it.