Mercedes own up to “clear mistake” which “ruined” Lewis Hamilton’s Singapore GP

Mercedes technical chief James Allison has admitted it was a “clear mistake” to start Lewis Hamilton on the soft tyres at the Singapore Grand Prix.

Hamilton was the only driver in the top 10 to opt for softer rubber for the start of Sunday’s race at the Marina Bay Street Circuit.

The seven-time world champion was unable to gain a place at the start despite challenging Max Verstappen into Turn 1.

From that point, Hamilton’s pace ultimately was poor, coming into the pit lane on Lap 17.

This proved to be too early as he was overcut by teammate George Russell - and ultimately beaten by Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc.

Hamilton has already voiced his criticism of the strategy in a Petronas sponsor event following the Singapore GP.

Speaking in a video on Mercedes’ YouTube channel, Allison explained their rationale for choosing the softs.

“Before I give the explanation, I will just start off by saying: we shouldn’t have started on the softs, that was a mistake,” he said. “If we could turn back time we would do what those around us did and select the mediums.

“The reasoning was that the soft tyre very often allows you to get away from the start abruptly and allows you a good chance of jumping a place or two in the opening laps of the race. We had no real expectation before the race that we were going to suffer the sort of difficulties that we then experienced on the soft rubber.

“We imagined we would get the upside of the soft rubber, of getting a place or two. We didn’t because that is the way the starts played out.

“We hoped that the downside of the soft being a bit more fragile wouldn’t play out particularly badly because on the whole if you look back over the years in Singapore, on the whole, the pace starts very, very easy at Singapore and the drivers then build up the pace over many, many laps leaving a soft tyre perfectly OK to run relatively deep into the pit window.

“We didn’t get the place at the start, the pace start building up from around Lap 5 and that left Lewis with a car that wasn’t particularly happy anyway suffering from quite poor degradation and needing to come in early as a consequence. It really ruined his race for him. A clear mistake.”