Way too many cooks! Should have left Ross at the helm. He's a proven winner and an excellent strategist. Instead we get the Terminator.
The only commiseration is that Lewis tends to come back from these things stronger. After Spa 14 he never looked back and I think this could be similar.
Today reminds me of Ferrari when they blew Alonso's championship at the last race with a bad strategy call, covering off a danger that wasn't there.
Yes, I am sure he will try to even improve on his driving, even though he is driving at the highest level right now and is at the top of his game. People had criticism him earlier to ignoring some team orders but you now see why. I think he should have ignored them today. Sometimes he needs to just ignore those stupid instructions and take the heat afterwards.
I think Lewis is partly to blame in this it seems. -Reaffirms the lack of outburst from him, looks like he agreed with the pit wall.
Come on..they told him he would come out in front so there was no reason to doubt the bats. Why should he be blamed?
Hmmmm. Hamilton said he initially thought the cars behind him had pitted, so he assumed he was called in to cover off the fact his pursuers would be on fresher tyres when the race resumed after the safety car. "I saw a screen and it looked like the team was out [in the pits]," he added. "It looked like Nico had pitted. "I thought the guys behind were pitting, so when the team said stay out, I said the tyres were dropping temperature, and I was assuming that these guys would be on options and I would be on the harder tyre, so they said to pit. "I did that and came in thinking with full confidence the others had done the same." (From Autosport)
I don't think I have ever witnessed such a catastrophic "handing over" of a win barring techinal errors. Crazy and laughable by Mercedes. Lewis had this in the bag and padlocked.
Hamilton will be gutted and he has every right to, but he should have questioned it. But overall even as the massive Lewis fan that I am, I'm glad he has come out very dignified and like someone posted it's a far cry from 2011 where he acted childish and stupid after another poor Monaco race. He has to look at the fact that so far in these 6 races he has been so much better than Nico and dominated today. Onwards and upwards for Canada!
This is a PR disaster for Mercedes and their response will need to be very carefully considered. When I saw the Mercedes crew in the pitlane I assumed someone had a puncture since the live timing was enough to suggest that whoever pitted of the two would lose out massively. It was a demonstration at F1's showcase event of turning dominance to incompetence. Not a look Mercedes will want for any length of time!
So is there any thread I can laugh in all by myself? Hamilton chose to stop by himself and cost himself the win. I haven't got a clue why the team is being blamed!
I think the issue is that team should have over ruled but, I agree with your point. The mumblings do seem to indicate that it was a Lewis request/decisions However, Lewis fans do love a good conspiracy theory!
May 24 (GMM) Lewis Hamilton is right to be "angry" after Mercedes cost him the Monaco win. That was the admission of team boss Toto Wolff after a catastrophic strategic mistake in the dying laps of Sunday's race through the fabled streets. Days after re-signing with the German giant, Hamilton was cruising to victory when Max Verstappen's huge crash brought out the safety car. "Lewis said his tyre temperatures had plummeted and he had no grip," Wolff told Austrian television ORF. "I'm sorry to him that we messed it up. It was the wrong decision (to pit him)," he said. When Hamilton re-emerged from the pits, his big gap had not only vanished, but teammate Nico Rosberg and Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel passed him. Instead of an easy win, the Briton finished third. "I can't express how I feel right now so I won't attempt to," the visibly and audibly gutted 30-year-old said. Team chairman Niki Lauda called the strategists' bad decision "unacceptable". "I have already apologised to Lewis' engineers. I have told Toto that he has to analyse the situation thoroughly," said the F1 legend. Mercedes engineers and management even began that process quite openly, as their animated discussion was watched through Monaco's unique pitlane windows by the world's media. "We can only apologise, apologise and apologise again," Wolff told reporters. "We calculated the gaps wrong. It was Lewis' victory. And he has every reason to be angry."
On a more serious note, I'm not sure why they didn't learn from Malaysia! They should have known from that day that track position is more important than tyres.
Mercedes need a one man leadership who can override any driver calls, and also is a good strategist and not just a good speaker in front of the cameras. We have an old timer as Lauda (who knows why he is there), Toto (no idea what his role is either, I just seem to catch him saying "totally unacceptable" in a strong bavarian accent every race) and Lowe (who is the Mercedes mastermind or something) - clearly not today. Not to mention the drivers own engineers/strategists/side of the garage. Too many cooks. No brains. This will be their downfall.
