After taking its first pole position and victory in Brazil, Mercedes F1 had nothing to lose by trying everything during the last Mammoth Prix in Abu Dhabi to try and dislodge Ferrari from 2nd place in the constructors' championship.
With 19 points to spare for the Scuderia, the task was however trivial, which is why Mercedes F1 strategy director James Vowles says it is an aggressive strategy to pit Lewis Hamilton, who was probably the only gamble in the race.
“Our target in Abu Dhabi was to do everything we could to finish second in the constructors’ championship, and to do that we had to finish ahead of Ferrari. It’s easier said than done when you qualify behind them and, honestly, in the race, the pace of our car wasn’t there.”
“But we saw with Lewis that the degradation of his rubber was actually quite good in the second stint of the race when we switched to the hard tyres. Obviously the first stint in the middle was not. But in this second stint, the deterioration with Lewis was low as with some other cars on the grid.”
“It wasn’t the same for every car, there were some cars with higher degradation and in Lewis’s case the contemporary stop meant he would get a trackside observation over Sainz and George (Russell).”
“Our only opportunity was to do a single stop and wait for a problem ahead of Charles (Leclerc). In two stops, Lewis would have finished ahead of George but behind Sainz. With similar tyres, similar wear and similar pace, nothing really could have changed otherwise. “Because you can win in the event of a safety car.”
“That whole part of the race where Lewis was leading, if there had been a safety car we would have taken advantage of it because we would have pitted and had the opportunity to be on track with him. Ultimately, splitting your cars creates opportunities.”
“Unfortunately, in this particular circumstance, nothing happened. But we had to try everything.”
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