Mercedes finished the Monaco Grand Prix as they had started it: in P5 and P7. What at first glance looked like an easy afternoon required a lot of work from George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. Two wrong strategies and a tire management battle lasting 77 laps.
Lewis Hamilton frustrated: Start crash in Monaco no surprise!
“I told you!” complained Lewis Hamilton on the radio. The alternative strategy with which Mercedes approached the race caused discontent. Unlike the top four drivers before them, he and his teammate (as well as Max Verstappen) started on the hard set of tires. The plan: to benefit from a red flag or a safety car. The problem: the red flag came, but already on the first lap.
Worst-case scenario for Mercedes. All drivers who started on medium tires were able to switch to the hard set of tires and drive through, the Silver Arrows either had to stop again or face a very long afternoon with 77 laps on the yellow tires. “I knew something would happen at the start of the race,” Hamilton complained. “That would have created an opportunity for us!”
So instead of a first podium in 2024, Mercedes had to Formula 1 or even a victory (source: George Russell and Andrew Shovlin) requires extreme tire conservation. With Lewis Hamilton, the team even gambled with the strategy again. The attempted undercut against Max Verstappen on lap 52 failed.
“Why didn’t you tell me that the out lap was crucial?” Hamilton was once again annoyed on the radio after his free stop thanks to the large gap to Yuki Tsunoda. Verstappen boxed him one lap later, outwitted him with a lightning-fast in lap and kept his sixth place. As a consolation prize, Hamilton received a point for the fastest lap.
Mercedes takes the blame: Need to communicate better
“That was a miscommunication that we made at the command post,” Toto Wolff took the blame for after the race. After the stop, Hamilton only received a radio message telling him to drive a “normal out lap.” “The message to him was confusing at best, wrong at worst.”
Doubly bad for Mercedes: This put George Russell under massive pressure. Max Verstappen stormed up with fresh tires and was close to the 26-year-old Brit after ten laps. The pace advantage of the Red Bull driver’s fresh hard tires was not enough to overtake in Monaco. “I had everything under control,” said Russell after the race.
“But when I saw that everyone else was starting on medium, I thought we had a huge opportunity. Especially when Carlos had the puncture,” Russell said, annoyed. He was also annoyed about Sainz being relegated to third place. His race engineer Marcus Dudley had to warn him several times not to drive too fast and to save his tires instead.
“We were 30 seconds behind Charles at one point and were able to close the gap to 12 seconds. Only four away from the McLarens,” says George Russell, who is not dissatisfied with his ‘best weekend of the season’. Also because the long-run pace of the W15 finally looked better thanks to updates and setup changes.
In Montreal, Lewis Hamilton will receive the new front wing that his teammate was already using in Monaco. The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve should then provide a more exciting race for the Silver Arrows. So that Toto Wolff doesn’t have to go to the fridge out of boredom again. “I’ve never done that in the last twelve years, but I got myself a yogurt and an espresso in between,” Toto Wolff told ORF with a smile.
Despite Lewis Hamilton’s failed undercut, Max Verstappen was not at all satisfied with his Monaco weekend. With P6, he fell far short of his expectations. You can read what was going on at Red Bull apart from the Perez drama here.