Hamilton against Ferrari’s strategy: “Do you want to use me as a guinea pig?”

Unshared strategy

It is a Lewis Hamilton definitely on edge, at least from the point of view of radio messages, that we saw today in Zandvoort. The Ferrari driver, after arguing and complaining with the team for not having immediately received the way from Charles Leclerc, openly showed that he did not appreciate the particularly aggressive strategy used by the Maranello pit wall in the second part of the race. Hamilton in fact was left on track for a long time with used hard tires, managing to run up to 30 laps with a set of hard compounds, a record for the entire race.

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Thanks to this move, the Englishman spent several laps at the head of the race, but then had to give way in quick succession to Lando Norris and Kimi Antonelli, who overtook him without too much trouble thanks to tires much fresher than his. However, the Virtual Safety Car caused by Esteban Ocon’s retirement was providential, giving the Prancing Horse the opportunity to realign Hamilton with his direct rivals. The Englishman certainly did not hide his desire to be able to stop at the pits, addressing the Ferrari pit wall quite aggressively.

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“Are you using me as a guinea pig or what?!“, Hamilton thundered, literally using the term “Guinea pig”. “What’s going on? How long do you want me to stay out?“. Immediately Hamilton was called back to the pits and then sent back on track with fresh soft tires. However, this episode confirms that from time to time there is still some ‘alignment’ problem at the strategy level between the seven-time champion and the red strategists.

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