Mercedes strategy of the Race - Monaco

[Nitrodaze]

Nico and Seb both said it was like driving on ice , and Lewis would have been seeing a big lead fall away , and hungry guys coming up behind him for a safety car restart .
That would have made anyone uncomfortable .

He said he saw the screens showing the Merc guys out in pit lane , ready to cover a Ferrari move .
Naturally , he'd want to get tires if it looked like either or both were heading in .

It was all very logical , and it should have worked .


By the way , Truefan , I'm sure you meant "moot" and not "mute" in reference to your point #1 .
Your meaning must have been to call it insignificant , rather than silent .

While I do understand that you believe that Hamilton has been poorly treated by the team in the pits , it sounds like you see it as a conspiracy of sorts , and I'm sorry , but I don't see it .

In reference to the idea that the 1.5 seconds were moot , I certainly do not agree .
Roughly a third of that time was all he needed and he would have sailed off again into the distance while the others lumbered around on ice .


If you want to look for a conspiracy , look to race control , who tossed in the safety car when the procedure all expected was the virtual one .
It was a curious decision that cost Lewis the time that made it even close to dangerous for Lewis to pit .

It should have worked you say. The point was the risk outweighed the potential benefits because the margin for success was very tight. About half a second to spare with the hope that the pit crew don't eff up or wheel gun don't jam. Commonsense should have prevailed. There is no excuse that would make this go away. It was a EFF UP for the history books. People shall be talking about this for years to come.

[truefan72]

It should have worked you say. The point was the risk outweighed the potential benefits because the margin for success was very tight. About half a second to spare with the hope that the pit crew don't eff up or wheel gun don't jam. Commonsense should have prevailed. There is no excuse that would make this go away. It was a EFF UP for the history books. People shall be talking about this for years to come.

well said

[The Black Knight]

One final thing I want to point out on this, assuming no reliability issues, there was only one conceivable way in which Hamilton could have lost this race at time time of pitting him and that was by pitting him. Mercedes sanctioned the only action that could possible have cost Hamilton the race. I'm still astounded honestly. Surely someone's head needs to roll for this? I certainly would not be putting up with something like this were it to occur in my company. Mistakes happen but an eff up of this magnitude is completely unacceptable.

I do feel that Mercedes need to make this up to Hamilton points wise with Rosberg somehow. He lost 17 points to Rosberg today due to their incompetence. It probably won't happen and I guess come the end of the year it won't matter. This is the best I've ever seen Hamilton drive this season and I'm sure he'll continue that form onwards.

[Bagwan]

When they brought the crew into the lane , ready for a stop , there was plenty of time .
And they had a driver asking for a stop .

Even as he entered pit lane there should have been enough time to do it .


Was it reason enough to stop ? Perhaps not , but they didn't see the threat as clearly as we do now .

Lewis obviously didn't ask what was the obvious question to ask , and the pit wall didn't think to relate that neither driver behind had pitted or was likely to pit .
Lewis had seen Merc boys in the lane , and if we ask what he was thinking at the time , we might come to the conclusion that he thought that Nico was going to pit , as he hadn't had the box order .
And , being that he was sat behind the safety car , he was seeing his 25 seconds evaporate quickly .

Asking to pit was basically asking whether he still had enough time to take on new skins .
At the time , he did , if all went well .




Win and lose as a team .
They owe him nothing but his ample salary .

[Firstgear]

While I agree that it was a stupid decision, it may be to Mercedes benefit in the end:

- They ended up with a 1-3 (40 points) instead of a 1-2 (43 points). So they lost 3 constructors points. The way things are going this season that shouldn't matter.

- People aren't saying 'Mercedes is crap', they're saying 'Hamilton's race engineer is crap.' So that shouldn't really hurt Mercedes, only one of its employees.

- The headlines might read 'German driver wins 3rd consecutive Monaco GP in a Mercedes' instead of 'Hamilton wins 1st Monaco GP'. This could actually be a plus for Mercedes.

- Rosberg winning the race closed the gap between him and Hamilton by 17 points, making the drivers championship more interesting. The battle for the WDC this year will most certainly be between the two Mercedes drivers, so the longer it stays close and interesting - the better it is for Mercedes.

- Lots of headlines and people talking about Mercedes because of this.

The overall losers in all of this are Hamilton and his race engineer. The winners would be Rosberg and Mercedes. I don't think Mercedes will be upset about that.

[Tazio]

The overall losers in all of this are Hamilton and his race engineer.

You forgot to mention the Boss' die-hard fans that considered slitting their wrists, but settled for beating their wives, and kicking their

[Mia 01]

People here (and there) keep talking about some "Boss". I´m sure Alonso got die hard fans, I know it for a fact, but bossen, bossen.

[Bagwan]

It was the signalling system in the Merc pit that let Lewis down after he was dropped from the jacks , according to TJ13 .


No hanging offences here .
Just dead bad luck .

Fate smacked him hard , but he's still leading , and he still got third .



As for his sulky stopping at the tunnel entrance , and his slow parking and knocking of the third sign , and his no champagne spray , I see him as still pretty fragile , in a time where until now he's been showing a reasonably serene , "in control" demeanor .

He had to know Rosberg knew he was lucky , and if he'd been listening closely , he would have exactly those words from his team-mate .
I would have been happier to see him declare how desperately stupid lucky Nico was , and that he'd better not expect that kind of gift again .

I'd rather see a declaration of the fight rather than a pout about the last battle .

[truefan72]

When they brought the crew into the lane , ready for a stop , there was plenty of time .
And they had a driver asking for a stop .

Let me correct you on this
Hamilton never asked for a stop he only explained the condition of his tires to the team, who failed to relay any proper information to him.
He was then asked to pit in a joke of a decision. He probably said the same things that vettel and rosberg, kimi, kvyatt and ricciardo relayed to the team,
the only difference is that the mercedes folks stupidly were the only ones to pit the leading car and lose the race

[Jag_Warrior]

No offense to anyone, but declaring from an armchair what someone should or should have done under those circumstances is a bit presumptuous, IMO. Looking back over my memory banks at things said and done by Mansell, Senna, Prost and Schumacher (among others), if what Lewis did on Sunday represented fragility, then he seems to be in pretty good company. Hell, I've seen drivers break down and cry before in other series, under less harsh circumstances and not as big a reward at stake.

Go to your daily job. Work on an important star-maker project for several weeks. Complete it successfully. And then let's see how you'd react if you learned that a member of management had goofed your presentation to the board, and your nemesis in the company got the promotion, even though his project was something a fresh out of school grad student could have done. He did what he did. And I'm certainly not going to be critical of him for his actions. He didn't kick anything. He didn't break anything (I'm sure that 3rd place sign will live to fight another day). And most of all, he didn't throw the team under the bus. To me, that is the big one that really surprised me. I don't think there are very many sportsmen (or people in the corporate world - that one I know for sure) who wouldn't have done that. And I suspect that is what made Toto Wolff breathe a sigh of relief. He could have easily found himself trying to explain to the media how he would be dealing with harsh, publicly spoken words launched against the team by Hamilton.

I imagine/pretty well know that he was emotionally crushed in that moment. And knowing that he's no more emotionally super-human than anyone else out there, his reaction was about as good as I would expect from anyone. I would say that whether it was Hamilton, Vettel, Alonso or anybody else. In the past, all three of those gentlemen have put their respective teams under the bus. In this case, Lewis didn't do that. So good on him. This is certainly not the same guy who pulled a brat move by tweeting telemetry data to prove that his team was clueless.

The potential damage that I see has to do with the Mercedes team. As a driver, it would be difficult to convince oneself that information or advice given in the future, under similar high pressure circumstances, would be entirely accurate. That trust has certainly been violated. And I'd say that will be hard to overcome.