Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner recently opened up on Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes tire strategy in Mexican Grand Prix. The Austrian team supremo revealed that he was quite surprised with the strategy the German team took during the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez race in Mexico City.

Hamilton, who was pushing for a win, ultimately failed to pull it off as he finished 15 seconds behind race winner Max Verstappen. Horner believes the tire strategy was one of the reasons why the Brackley-based team were the second-best team to Red Bull.

Talking about this, Horner revealed in a report published by the Express, “The medium and the hard tire… you just don’t have that much grip on that. We were surprised that Mercedes was so conservative with this strategy.”

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When asked if Mercedes would’ve won the race if their tire strategy would’ve been perfect, the Briton stated, “I think we [Red Bull] would still have the advantage. But they would have been a lot closer to the win. You heard the drivers were not happy with the hard tire.”

Lewis Hamilton questioned Mercedes’ tire choice

The Silver Arrows were as good as the Red Bulls at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez during the Mexican Grand Prix. However, their tire strategy was what kept them at bay from catching the Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez. Hamilton, the star driver of his team, constantly asked if they were on the perfect strategy.

Hamilton started the Mexican race with medium compound tires while pole-sitter Verstappen started with softs. During the only one pitstop both the drivers took, the Dutchman was given the mediums whereas hard were set for Hamilton.

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During the race, Hamilton questioned if they were on the right tire strategy. The Briton remarked, “This tire is not as good as the medium.” Several laps later, he further asked, “Are we on the wrong tire mate?” In the end, the Briton had to finish the race behind Verstappen despite having fair chance to win the race.

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Soft tires have more grip than mediums or hards. Then comes the mediums and then the hards which are pretty difficult to handle. However, softs degrade way too easily as compared to other compounds and probably that was the reason why Mercedes chose to go the hard way.