Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto believes rivals Mercedes were quick enough to win the last two races but they didn’t make the right choices on tyre strategy.
Lewis Hamilton finished second to Max Verstappen at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez today and in Austin a week ago. On both occasions he was left questioning his team’s tyre strategy.
In Austin, Hamilton was left without a fresh set of medium tyres for the final stint. He had to run on hards, which allowed Verstappen to catch and pass him on mediums.
The pair ran different strategies again today. Hamilton started on mediums and switched to hards, while Verstappen went from soft to medium and pulled away from his rival, finishing 15 seconds ahead.
Ferrari, who have been criticised over their strategy choices in some races this year, mirrored Red Bull’s tactics by starting both drivers on the soft tyres and switching to mediums. Binotto believes Mercedes cost themselves a chance to win for the second weekend in a row today by not doing the same.
“In Hungary we have been criticised and it’s normally when we are doing things which are not completely right, we are criticised,” he said in response to a question from RaceFans. “Mercedes maybe have lost the last race as well by not choosing the right tyres in Austin. So I think it’s not only down to us somehow to make different choices or making mistakes.”
Ferrari endured one of their toughest race weekends with an ill-handling car. However they believe they got the strategy call correct after realising early on that the soft tyre was durable enough to run a one-stop strategy in the heat of Mexico.
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“We saw that there was not much degradation on the soft, or sufficient to run a one-stop soft-medium, and we went for it,” said Binotto.
“Certainly then in the race we had as well to manage our tyres to make sure that we’re surviving on a one-stop and that maybe as well is part of the cause of our slow pace of today. So managing tyres has been certainly an item a subject for us today. But still we believe that soft-medium was the right choice for the race.”
Charles Leclerc enquired about making an extra pit stop at one point, but the team realised it would leave him with too many cars to overtake.
“We saw that the one-stop would have been the fastest race today,” he said. “So our main plan was a one-stop race, soft and medium.
“With Charles at some stage he asked us well for a plan C, it was a solution which was simply switching over to a two stop because he knew that the tyres were difficult. But he would have simply pitted into many traffic and much traffic, behind seven cars and it would not have been the right choice.
“So the one stop was the main plan and I think at the end of today it was the right plan for the race.”
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