Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsFerrari

Arrivabene: Mercedes got complacent

Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene believes Mercedes got too complacent about its advantage when pitting Lewis Hamilton in the Monaco Grand Prix.

Hamilton stopped under the safety car late in the race despite enjoying a substantial lead, a move which dropped him to third place behind Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel. Despite being on fresh tyres, Hamilton - who believed his two rivals would also pit - was unable to pass the Ferrari and finished in third.

Asked if Ferrari considered pitting, Arrivabene replied: "No, actually it was the opposite and we were nervous at the beginning thinking about them to pit.

"We were looking for the window and our strategist said ‘we stay cool, they are doing a kind of show’. In any case, he said that if they come in then we would stay out. He was really straightforward on this and he was right. I know that we were lucky, I’m not telling you something different.

"In my opinion, they were a bit too much convinced about their power, and I recognise they are very intelligent and stronger than us, but this time we were smarter."

Mercedes chairman Niki Lauda branded the error "unacceptable" and ordered an investigation in to the mistake.

Click here for a gallery of Max Verstappen's crash with Romain Grosjean during the Monaco Grand Prix

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.