Resigned to second place in the Formula 1 constructors’ championship yet again, Ferrari will look back on a failed campaign and one in which they at one point had the fastest car but somehow managed to turn sure victory into defeat on more than one occasion.
After being pole-axed by Lewis Hamilton’s unexpected in Mexico where he got the most out of the hard Pirelli tyres than anyone expected, perhaps himself included. Whatever the case it was an atypical drive from the Champion during which he had to nurse his tyres to make the bold strategy work.
Ferrari were stumped, waiting for the pitstop that never came and, once again, the man doing the pickpocketing was Hamilton.
Talking to media in Austin about Sunday’s race in Mexico, team boss Mattia Binotto conceded, “Generally speaking we need to take more risks and be braver and being brave enough means that maybe when Albon stopped, we shouldn’t have stopped Charles, and he should have stayed out.
“But in doing that we were pretty sure that the tyres wouldn’t have lasted until the end by stopping at that time, which was wrong, the wrong assumption.”
The 2019 edition of the Pirelli tyres had a huge impact on how teams have gone racing this season. No one fully understands exactly how the tyres will behave at certain points, and beyond longer mileage.
Ferrari were more than once stumped by the tyres and paid the price. Mexico was an example where Mercedes out-foxed their rivals by making the hardest tyres work well enough for victory.
Binotto admitted, “It means in terms of tyre modelling, tyre understanding there was still some tuning which was required and looking back at the data we are trying to improve our tyre model for better understanding that will give us, in the future, a better opportunity [to make] a better choice.”