Don't blame Ferrari for Hamilton's tire call - Vasseur

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur says his team should not be criticized for Lewis Hamilton’s decision not to make a second pit stop during the Singapore Grand Prix.

Hamilton started on medium tires but switched to softs early in the race due to struggles on his original compound, before both Ferrari drivers were called into the pits during a Virtual Safety Car period. Hamilton wanted to try and get to the end on his existing set of softs as track position is often key in Singapore, but he faded from third on the road to finish sixth.

“I think it was clearly a mistake,” Vasseur said. “When you see the outcome, it was not a good call. But on the other hand, quite often you are also telling us that we have to listen to the drivers, because they are inside the car, they have the feeling with their tires and so on. But I think on this one it was clear for me. But I also have to respect their feeling when they are in the car.”

“We asked him to pit. Don't blame the team, guys. Clearly on the radio he said, ‘I apologize, I let you down, that it was my call’. He decided not to stop behind the VSC but it would have been a P2-P3.”

With Charles Leclerc starting on soft tires alongside Max Verstappen on the front row, Vasseur says Ferrari had executed strong strategic calls as the race unfolded, even if it had failed to get the better of the Red Bull driver.

“I think the strategy was… first the tire choice was difficult,” he said. “We did FP1 with the hard [compound] as everybody else, and we were all blind between medium and soft. It's why on the grid you had 50-50 [between tire choices], it's not so often.

“We took the decision to split the cars. I think it was a good approach to try to fight with Max. But the medium was poor compared to the soft. It was true on all cars, I think it was true for everybody. We decided to pit quite early to change the direction, to get rid of the medium.

“Honestly we had the two options open from the beginning to have a two-stop or a one-stop because we had no clue about the degradation. This kind of weekend when you have the Sprint, it can be mega-safe because it is the best option to do a long stint in the Sprint with medium or soft and you have a very good read of the tires.

“But when the sprint is with intermediates, it's much more difficult. I think everybody was a bit in a corner but we reacted very well during the race. I think the strategy was good that when we asked them to swap, they swapped very quickly and it went very well until the VSC.”