Lewis Hamilton believes he could have fought for victory at Sepang had he started on the right tyres.
The Ferrari driver qualified on the front row of the grid alongside Max Verstappen.“We were having a good weekend,” he said. “The car felt great in qualifying. It felt amazing to get to second.
“Me and my engineers were here ’til 11:30 last night just going over everything and I really, really felt today was the opportunity to have at least a good battle with Max.”
The original start was delayed due to rain. A further delay followed after a software problem caused several drivers, including Hamilton and Verstappen, to slow to a crawl during the formation lap.
“My power didn’t come back and I had to stop on-track and restart the car and then we all ended up in the pit lane,” said Hamilton. “Thankfully, we all got back to our positions.”
By the time race control were ready to start the race, the track had dried considerably, though it was still damp. Hamilton and his team chose to start the race on slick tyres.
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“There was such a long wait and we were debating what tyre to go on to. And I said, ‘look, there was a lot of spray on the laps to the grid.’
“I went into the pit lane, I looked at the ground, I was like, ‘It’s still wet.’ I went to the pit wall and I was like, ‘It’s still wet.’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah, but because it’s been so long, it’s definitely going to dry up real quick and maybe we’re already in the crossover.’
“So, anyway, as a team we ended up taking that soft and when we were at the end of the pit lane and these two took off their blankets and they were on inters [I knew] we were in trouble.”
The track took a long time to dry and those who opted for intermediates gained a significant advantage at the start. Hamilton urged the team not to bring him into the pits for another change.
“As everyone had overtaken me, they’re like, ‘we stop.’ [But] I know we’ve already [lost] another 26 seconds, what’s the difference from that with one minute 40 or whatever I was down? So I [said] ‘let’s just wait it out for the track to dry.’ And once it did, it felt good that I was catching people.”
Hamilton began to make progress on his softs once the Safety Car came out and he was back within range of other cars.
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“The car felt great then after that. Really good pit stops from my guys in the garage and then good strategy.
“For us to get back to the podium, I never thought that that was going to be the case. But, of course, I’m really, really grateful that we managed to get back here.”
He said he will have an “open dialogue” with the team about the decision to start the race on slicks.
“We’ve definitely got areas that we need to improve and we know that, and we’re not in any denial of that.
“So I think we’ll have a constructive chat, we’ll regroup, we’ll take the positives from this weekend, which was the car was really good, and we’ll come back next week fighting. I thought today, as I said, was a chance for us potentially to try and fight Max for the win, but maybe we can do that next week.”
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