Lewis Hamilton achieved a top-three finish in Sepang on Sunday and yet he knew almost immediately that his Bahrain Grand Prix was in serious trouble.
The seven-time world champion had seen what Max Verstappen and Kimi Antonelli were putting on their cars, and the sight of intermediates while Ferrari had committed to slicks told him everything he needed to know.
Hamilton ultimately recovered brilliantly to finish third, but the podium masked a strategic gamble that initially sent him tumbling down the order.
The Briton had qualified second behind Verstappen on Saturday, setting up the prospect of a direct fight with the Red Bull driver. Instead, the race was delayed by heavy rain and then further postponed when several cars – including himself – suffered power losses on the formation lap.
Race delay creates strategic headache
Ferrari opted for soft tyres for Hamilton and Charles Leclerc while most of their rivals, including Verstappen and Antonelli, went with intermediates.
Hamilton had already expressed doubts about the conditions after seeing how much water remained on the circuit.
“I said, ‘Look, there was a lot of spray on the laps to the grid.’ And I went into the pit lane, I looked at the ground, I was like, ‘It’s still wet’,” he explained.
“And they’re like, ‘Yeah, but because it’s been so long, it’s definitely going to dry up real quick and maybe we’re already in the crossover.’
“So, anyways, as a team, we ended up taking the Soft and when we were at the end of the pit lane and these two [Verstappen and Antonelli] took off their blankets and they’re on Inters, we were in trouble.”
The writing was on the wall before the race had even properly begun.
Hamilton's fears were confirmed as the field accelerated away, with Ferrari's soft-tyre runners immediately struggling for grip while the intermediate-shod cars made the most of the damp conditions.
“And as we pulled out, all the spray came out the back of Max’s car and I was like, ‘Okay, I’m done. My race is really in trouble.’ So, I mean, he didn’t make it around on the formation lap, so then we just had to stick with it. Like, we’ve made the decision and live with it.”
Hamilton chooses patience over panic
The consequence was brutal. Hamilton and Leclerc plunged down the order while the intermediate runners controlled the opening phase.
But Ferrari had little choice other than to stay committed to the original gamble and wait for the circuit to come to them.
Hamilton resisted the temptation to make another stop simply to escape the situation, reasoning that the time already lost made an additional pitstop difficult to justify.
“And I think then, through that, as everyone’s overtaken me, they’re like, ‘We stop,’ because I know we’ve already made another 26 seconds.
“What’s the difference from that with one minute 40 or whatever I was down? So I was just, ‘Let’s just wait it out for the track to dry.’ And once it did, it felt good that I was catching people.”
©Ferrari
That patience eventually paid off.
As the track dried, the Ferrari came alive and Hamilton began carving his way back through the field. Strong pit work and an increasingly effective strategy then helped transform what had looked like a lost afternoon into a remarkable recovery.
“The car felt great then after that. Really good pit stops from my guys in the garage and then good strategy. But for us to get back to the podium, I never thought that that was going to be the case,” Hamilton said.
“But, of course, I’m really, really grateful that we managed to get back here.”
Hamilton's podium was therefore less a vindication of Ferrari's opening tyre call than a remarkable rescue operation after the decision had initially appeared to ruin his race.
The Briton's comments also underline just how quickly the strategic picture changed in Sepang.
He had recognised the danger before the lights went out, but once Ferrari committed to the soft tyre, there was little to do except accept the gamble and hope the circuit eventually moved in its favour.
It eventually did – and Hamilton made sure to take full advantage, as did teammate Charles Leclerc who finished fourth.
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