2019 Russian GP - Sochi

[The Black Knight]

I respectfully (and gentlemanly lol) disagree TBK
There are circumstance that would void such an agreements
1. a poor start (which he had)
2. poor driving ( if he made error/s that affected his pace)
3. poor pace (when the leading car is pulling away from you as vettel did)
4. some kinda of mechanical issue
5. being hounded from behind (by Hamilton) which would make such a switch detrimental to the ability to win the race
And this point is the most important one of all.

Hamilton was keeping pace with Leclerc on mediums. Making the switch would mean that Vettel would have to slow down by about 4-5 seconds just to let leclerc bye and then compromise his race with the possibility of Hamilton passing him, or him getting stuck behind leclerc. And what would have happened if Vettel on the very next lap challenge and tried to pass leclerc? Given leclerc's defending of recent, it might have been all tears and shambles. Would Ferrari then tell a clearly faster Vettel to hold station and block hamilton? Would vettel accept that predicament? Not to mention the ensuing pit strategy. Who would you pit first? A slower Leclerc and then allow Vettel to overcut him while he gets stuck behind traffic and allow Hamilton to run longer on the mediums? All these questions and scenarios are real possibilities before the "retirement" of vettel's car...which only manged to compromise leclerc even more, aided by their botched pit strategy which should have had them in immediately instead of a lap later.

Oh well. We shall never know, But I expect more fireworks at suzuka where I now believe that Ferrari are more than likely to take pole again.

Hamilton wasn’t really keeping pace with LeClerc on the mediums. They dropped him fairly quick and the gap was around the 3 second mark on lap 8 while Vettel was only 1.3 seconds ahead of LeClerc at this point. This is the point Sebastien should have yielded and he has no excuse for not doing so. The subsequent gap Vettel made to LeClerc later on in the stint is more attributable to overheating tires due to following in the dirty air than any extra pace by Sebastien. At the start of the race he was clearly no quicker than LeClerc and should have yielded.