Fred Vasseur conceded that Lewis Hamilton made a \u201cmistake\u201d in his decision to stay out under the Virtual Safety Car during the Singapore Grand Prix, with the Ferrari Team Principal explaining that the split-second call cost the Briton a podium.<\/p>\n
Hamilton<\/a> led Leclerc<\/a> in a 2-3 finish in the Singapore Sprint<\/a> before the duo swapped places in Qualifying, setting up a perfect opportunity for Ferrari<\/a> to divide their strategies and challenge Red Bull<\/a>\u2019s Max Verstappen<\/a> for victory.<\/p>\n While Leclerc enjoyed a strong opening stint on the grippier soft tyres, Hamilton struggled for pace on his mediums and pitted just 19 laps in, moving back into the top three as the race progressed.<\/p>\n Leclerc had enough of a margin to switch out his tyres and remain ahead of his team mate, which the 41-year-old was not best pleased about as he was instructed to back off and manage his degradation.<\/p>\n However, when the chance arose to pit again under the Virtual Safety Car, Hamilton rejected Ferrari\u2019s offer of a double stack and opted to continue on his aging tyres instead of following his team mate in.<\/p>\n That left him vulnerable as his pace continued to fall away over the final laps, and it didn\u2019t take long for Kimi Antonelli<\/a> and the McLarens<\/a> of Lando Norris<\/a> and Oscar Piastri<\/a> to all power past, demoting him to P6 at the chequered flag.<\/p>\n \u201cThe call was to pit [two drivers at the VSC] and Lewis decided to stay on track,\u201d Vasseur confirmed to F1 TV after the race.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it was a mistake overall \u2013 we would\u2019ve gone for P2 and P3 today. He apologised on the in-lap for the strategy. We asked him to call and he didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSorry boys, I let you down with that strategy,\u201d was Hamilton\u2019s message to his team after he dropped down the order and missed out on what would\u2019ve been his seventh Grand Prix podium of the season.<\/p>\n Speaking to Sky Sports F1, Vasseur elaborated: \u201cWe kept the door open for the two options depending on a VSC and so on \u2013 that was the case.<\/p>\n \u201cWe called them both to pit \u2013 it would have been P2 and P3 because we were P2 and P3 on track. He missed the pit entry. Honestly, it\u2019s a bit of a shame because he lost a podium too.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was crystal clear on the radio. Now let\u2019s be focused on Austin. The performance this weekend was okay. We have to be focused on the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fred Vasseur conceded that Lewis Hamilton made a \u201cmistake\u201d in his decision to stay out under the Virtual…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":799378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[59,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-799377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-gb","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}