Mercedes explain Hamilton’s late Spa pit stop

Mercedes trackside engineering director, Andrew Shovlin, has suggested the early Safety Car at Spa took the optimal strategy away from Lewis Hamilton. Mercedes were asked by fans why Hamilton pitted later than Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. “We stopped Lewis a lap later than Leclerc,” Shovlin said in Mercedes’ Pure Pitwall debrief regarding the Spa race. “Now because Lewis was out on his older tyres, he lost a bit of time there and Leclerc was on fresh tyres and could build that gap whilst we stayed out on track. It gave Lewis a bit more of a gap to close down. Now we came very close to getting into an overtaking position but the race was just a little bit too short for us. “So the big question is…had we gone one lap earlier, two laps earlier, would we have been in a better position to overtake [Leclerc]? Now certainly we would have been closer on track, but our tyres were going off, as were Leclerc’s. We would have had older tyres and a bit less performance. “It’s a very difficult question to answer but as always if what you try didn’t work, you’re always thinking you should have done something a bit differently.”

Max Verstappen set to start Monza from the back