The Portuguese Grand Prix qualifying witnessed the Mercedes F1 team opting for a strange strategy for both Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.

During Q3, while the other cars left their garages on a set of soft tires, there was the Mercedes duo, who surprisingly opted to go out on a set of Mediums for the first time this season.

But in the end, neither of the drivers managed to improve on their previous runs and were tapping their foot hard, hoping for Max Verstappen to mess up his final flying lap.

Luckily enough, that is exactly what happened, as, despite the wrong strategy, Mercedes managed to lock out the front row for the first time since the 2020 Sakhir GP.

The 7-time world champion, Hamilton, too, acknowledged that the Medium tire gamble wasn’t the right decision, and reckoned that tires failed to do their jobs.

The Algarve circuit has so far been extremely tricky to drive on, constantly evolving, and drivers having to do 2 or 3 laps before pushing for a flat-out flying lap. Hence, this may have forced Mercedes to gamble on the tire strategy during the crucial final part of qualifying.

What did Lewis Hamilton say?

During the post-qualifying press conference, Hamilton opened up about why he struggled to fire up the Medium tires in Q3, despite accomplishing it minutes back in Q2.

“I don’t think it was… it probably wasn’t the right decision at the end but it was just tricky out there. You saw us having to do multiple laps,” he said.

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“The tyres are too hard here, so they don’t work very well with the surface so we have to do extra laps to get temperature in and at the end, just didn’t have very great grip, so didn’t do the greatest job.”

The race is likely to be much trickier with winds set to pick up around the afternoon. Hence, the drivers will struggle to keep their cars on the track, and the fans can definitely look forward to a handful of spins or even crashes.

So, amidst such a tough afternoon on the cards, who is going to win the Portuguese Grand Prix? Will either Valtteri Bottas or Sergio Perez manage to squeeze in their first race win of this season at the Algarve circuit?

Read More: Portuguese GP 2021 Predictions: Can Lewis Hamilton Extend His F1 Lead Against Max Verstappen in Portimao?