For the second straight race, Lewis Hamilton blamed Mercedes' strategy after a frustrating fourth place at the Singapore Grand Prix.
Though it was Charles Leclerc starting from pole, the expectation was the Briton would still have the superior race pace to overhaul the Monegasque.
Instead, there was no real threat in a very slow first stint saving tyres, and Hamilton was left all at sea as Ferrari drove the perfect race.
“I knew that we should have undercut,” a disappointed Hamilton said post-race. “I knew it this morning as well in the brief, I was like I should take the risk, but they didn’t.
"We win and lose together as a team so we will take this on our chin. It’s painful for us because we could have easily won today but it just didn’t work out.”
Also Read:
Not only did Hamilton lose out to Vettel, but Max Verstappen also stopped on the same lap for Red Bull to clinch the final podium place.
This left Mercedes boss Toto Wolff taking some responsibility for the conservative approach.
“We discussed the undercut but there was the risk of being caught up in traffic,” he told Sky Sports.
“Vettel’s team did it right, they had nothing to lose, and I think everybody was surprised by how strong the undercut was.”
“At that point, we had already lost the position to Sebastian,” he noted.
“You lose the win and then we tried to do the opposite and go a bit longer, Lewis was saying the tyre was in good shape and we knew they were eventually going to catch up onto the traffic.
“Lots of assumptions and all was different, our tyre just wore off, it wasn’t competitive at all anymore and this is why we ended up nowhere.”
With Ferrari now having won at Spa, Monza and Singapore, it means Mercedes has gone three races without a victory for just the second time in the hybrid era.
And seeing the sudden and unexpected resurgence of the Italian team at Marina Bay, has Hamilton worried.
“It feels like they are hungrier than us, we’ve just got to step it up," he declared.
“We’ve got the ability and we’ve got the team, we’re still the best team. We’ve just got to stop dragging our feet and get on.
“We’ll debrief or re-huddle, get back in the scrum and come back fighting at the next race.”
