Lewis Hamilton sharply hits out at Mercedes strategy in Japanese Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton was left feeling exasperated during Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix, imploring midway through the race for his Mercedes team to “change the strategy.”

Seven-time F1 world champion Hamilton, who joins Ferrari next year, finished ninth at Suzuka and again behind team-mate George Russell – who finished seventh.

Mercedes opted for a bold tyre strategy following the early red flag, switching to a hard tyre as they attempted to try a one-stop strategy after the restart.

However, with cars comfortably overtaking both Hamilton and Russell, the 39-year-old was unhappy with the direction his team took, stating sharply over team radio: “Change the strategy!”

Mercedes did in the end opt for a two-stop strategy, but could not recover any positions and Hamilton finished ninth – two spots lower than his starting grid spot of seventh.

Questioned about whether a different strategy may have been better, Hamilton said post-race: “I don’t know what it would have been. We still had two really terrible tyres to run through.

“A real challenge today. I think I picked up a bit of damage, I had huge understeer for the first stint. The hard tyre was pretty bad, medium tyre was much better. In general, the car was just pretty bad here.” Hamilton, on Saturday, had said his Mercedes car felt better than it had done for “three years.”

His P9 finish maintains Hamilton’s worst-ever start to a Formula 1 season, picking up just 10 points from the first four races. He is currently ninth in the drivers’ championship, 67 points off leader and winner on Sunday Max Verstappen.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said afterwards: “We ended up where we started, it was very difficult. The third stint was enough for a podium but an atrocious first stint, we need to find out what it was.”

On the tyre strategy, Wolff added: “It was the right thing to do at the beginning. Then it suddenly dropped two seconds a lap, from that moment it was clear it wouldn’t last.

“There’s no excuse, we’ve got to sort it out. This is life testing for us. The car is becoming quicker.”

A Mercedes spokesperson said after the race about the strategy gamble: "With our tyre allocation, we were able to give ourselves the possibility of looking at either a one or a two stop after the red flag - hence the hard tyre restart.

"Ultimately, as the race progressed, the tyre degradation showed that the two-stop was going to be the quickest way to the flag. Our second and third stints showed solid pace compared to those around us, including the McLarens and the Ferraris.

"We knew that Suzuka would not be our strongest track though and, with time lost being overtaken on the offset strategy (one of the downsides of this strategy), we couldn’t make it back to P6 which was likely the maximum today."