Toto Wolff explains Lewis Hamilton soft tyre gamble after strategy ‘battle’ claim:

After Lewis Hamilton criticised the choice to start on soft tyres in Singapore, something which he said was a Mercedes call that he fought against, team boss Toto Wolff explained that it was all about the start.

Hamilton hit pause on his qualifying struggles which have frustrated him at times in F1 2024 to secure P3 on the Singapore grid, as he shared the second row with Mercedes team-mate George Russell. But while Russell followed the crowd by starting on mediums, Hamilton had softs fitted for the opening stint, which did not please the seven-time World Champion.

Toto Wolff defends Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton strategy gamble.

After pitting on Lap 17 to ditch the softs, Hamilton was overcut by Russell and ultimately finished P6, Hamilton claiming he had tried to talk Mercedes out of splitting the strategies, but to no avail, a move which left him “perplexed”.

“We sat in our meeting in the morning of the race, actually the night before they already mentioned that they would like to split the cars,” said Hamilton at an event for Mercedes’ partner Petronas.

“And for me, I, was quite surprised of it. Since in the past we have ever been in that position… Usually if George has qualified well as he usually does and I am out of the top 10 or something like that we would be splitting the strategies, but we were so close. It didn’t make sense to me.

“So I gave a strong fight to the best of my ability to try refusing to go on the medium tyre, but the team insisted on my starting on the soft.

And then when they took the tyre blankets off, everybody was on mediums…

“I was so angry.”

But, according to Wolff, there was some ‘logic’ to Mercedes’ decision as they planned to provide Hamilton with an opportunity at the start and the over taking chances thus would be limited after that.

“I believe we have got race and strategy all wrong,” Wolff said to journalists and other people after the Singapore grand pix.

We decided that according to historic Singapore, it is in effect a procession, like Monaco; and that the soft tyre would give him his shot at the start inasmuch as it would be the only chance to pass.

And that was the wrong decision that we all took with no one and everyone jointly. Felt like a good offset. But with the rear tyre deg that we had there was only going one way, that was backwards.

I believe there was some rationale behind it, though obviously it was exactly the opposite of what we should have done.

Which wouldn’t bother trying to sugarcoat the fact that every now and again when a car is too slow, then you are as well. Likely, you’re in a position above or below. Kajako replied, “That doesn’t change anything.”

Only the Red Bulls would overtake Russell to claim the fourth position as the highest-placing Mercedes candidate.