Lewis Hamilton does believe he could have challenged the two Ferrari’s regardless of the Safety Car at the Russian Grand Prix.
Both Mercedes’ ran a different strategy to the Italian team at the start, running the medium tyre compared to Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel on the soft.
And though Hamilton lost out to the four-time world champion on the run to Turn 2, their plan was working as hoped.
“They [Ferrari] were on another planet when they took off from the start, they were gone,” Lewis told Sky Sports.
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“After that, they had such great pace, so I was struggling just to keep up with them, however, I was just able to keep them within shooting distance and their tyres did start to go off a little bit, and that’s when I started to make a bit of a difference by closing that gap.
“Then Charles came in, and I started to catch Seb, but we were in a good position to be able to offset.”
Mercedes wouldn’t get the chance to see how their alternate strategy would play out though, as Vettel’s sudden retirement caused a Virtual Safety Car, allowing Hamilton to pit and stay ahead.
“Even if the [Virtual] Safety Car hadn’t come out, we would’ve extended [the stint], come out on the softs, and he [Vettel] would’ve been on the mediums, and we would’ve potentially had a race,” the five-time champion continued.
“Unfortunately, the safety car came out after his engine blew, so that kind of stole the show for the fans.”
Teammate Valtteri Bottas also believed the Brackley-based team did the “right things” with their original strategy, but his race became a matter of defence, defence, defence versus Leclerc.
“Of course, the timing of the Safety Car today came like a miracle, so that was good,” he admitted via Crash.net.
“I was trying to balance out, in the first few laps [after the restart] when to push hard enough to keep Charles behind and, at the same time, keep a little bit of margin to Lewis, because when you follow very close behind you obviously slide and destroy the tyres easily.
“I think the few seconds’ gap I had during most of the second stint was ideal, as I could get a bit of a tow effect on the straights and not too much sliding in the corners.
“It was pretty ideal, but I have to say Lewis was very quick today, especially in the first stint. I don’t know why but I didn’t have the pace to match him. The second stint was a lot better.”