Mercedes has “no idea” how Hamilton set fastest lap

The Mercedes Formula 1 team is still struggling to understand how Lewis Hamilton was able to set the fastest lap of the British Grand Prix with a set of old tyres.

Hamilton capped off a record-breaking sixth British GP victory at Silverstone by posting the fastest lap of the race on the final tour - and claim the additional bonus point on offer – despite having done 32-laps on a set of Hard tyres.

The new rule introduced for 2019 has seen a number of teams opt to pit their drivers towards the end of races for a set of fresh tyres in a bid to score the extra point, but Hamilton was able to do it without new tyres, despite his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas having a set of fresh Softs at his disposal.

“We truthfully have no idea at all how Lewis did the fastest lap of the race on 32-lap old Hard tyres,” said chief strategist James Vowles in the team's post-race debrief video.

“It was the hardest tyre available, completely used up, and yet he does a fantastic lap at the end.

“Because we weren’t expecting him to do that fastest lap of the race, we’d actually planned for him to do an extra pit stop towards the end,” he added. It was a free pit stop as Valtteri behind had to stop anyway.

“With Lewis we very much called him in with the intention of that, giving him a fresh set of tyres to go for the fastest lap but he was very comfortable with how his tyres were behaving, however, which is why ultimately, we left him out and he did the fastest lap irrespectively.”

After the race, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said that Hamilton’s fastest lap had made the team’s data “look a little bit silly”.

"The fastest lap on a 32-lap old hard tyre is very surprising,” he added.

“We tend to have a laugh because the engineers have that new presentation on a Sunday morning that says you don't need to go for fastest lap, it doesn't make any sense.

“And then he pulls one out like this, which makes the data look a little bit silly, but it's just his ability."