Question: On Sunday afternoon, the team admitted it made a strategic error in keeping Hamilton out during the safety car period - but what was your rationale for doing that in the heat of the moment?
Martin Whitmarsh: Generally speaking, when you are leading a grand prix and showing good pace, you are more risk-averse than those behind you. The first stint of the race clearly showed we had an inherent performance advantage over the rest of the field - so much so, in fact, that we felt comfortable about bringing Lewis in early for his first pitstop and fuelling him long for his second stint. When the safety car was deployed, we evaluated the options and felt that keeping Lewis out and running low-fuel on a clear track outweighed the potential difficulties of pitting him; which could have dropped him down the pack and would also have penalised Heikki, who would have been forced to queue in the pit lane behind Lewis. We were also affected by a number of contributing factors that we couldn’t have foreseen when we made the call. Firstly, the safety car stayed out for longer than we had anticipated, which meant the number of laps available for Lewis to pull out an advantage was reduced. Secondly, more cars pitted than we expected - this meant there was less traffic between Lewis and Felipe (Massa) after the safety car came in. Finally, we felt Lewis would have an advantage running on low-fuel with used tyres; in fact, the track evolution shifted to give greater benefit to cars fuelled heavily. That made his job harder.
Question: Is there now a need to re-evaluate how McLaren makes these strategic decisions?
Martin Whitmarsh: If you’re a leading team and you get it wrong then you’re going to face criticism. But hindsight is always 20:20 and we feel we made the right decisions based on the tough choices available to us. Don’t forget, too, that it was less clear-cut for Lewis because we had fuelled him longer than the other cars at his first pit stop. We had a bigger fuel window than the other teams, who were much closer to their second pit stop when the safety car was deployed. Therefore, it was a much easier call for them than it was for us. And I’m sure the decision for Ferrari was far more straightforward: they probably weren’t going to beat us. And if the tables had been turned, we’d doubtless have faced criticism if Massa had stayed out, jumped us and then capitalised on his advantage with a late splash-and-dash to the finish. But let’s not forget that Nick Heidfeld made the strategy work, staying out under the safety car and finishing fourth -so the strategy remained a valid one.
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