Lewis Hamilton admits strategic error in Bahrain: “That was the wrong choice” – Saudi GP. Lewis Hamilton revisits the mistakes made in the previous race in Bahrain.

The paddock has moved to Saudi Arabia for the final round of this spring triple-header. However, Lewis Hamilton’s mind is still in Bahrain, where he admits the decisions made were not flawless.

The race at the Sakhir circuit was probably Ferrari’s best so far this season. The team started the year with many expectations after the good performances of 2024. But, for now, the Maranello team is struggling more than expected.

While Charles Leclerc is starting to show some glimpses of promise, Hamilton still seems far from fully understanding the SF-25. Expectations are high for him too, understandably, but the Briton is still trying to adapt to the car he must drive.

Even in Bahrain, a clear difference could be seen between the two drivers, with Charles Leclerc starting in second and Hamilton in ninth. The 1985-born driver then climbed up to fifth, right behind his teammate.

And yet, perhaps the two Ferrari drivers could have hoped for something more. In Sakhir, teams experimented with different tyre strategies, with some making better choices than others. At Ferrari, for example, the decision was made to fit the hard compound on both cars for the second stint. However, the hard tyre turned out to be a disadvantage, as Lewis Hamilton himself pointed out.

Errors in judgement in Bahrain
“With hindsight, I think the hard tyre wasn’t the best choice for the race,” said Lewis Hamilton at the press conference, also attended by our correspondent. “During FP2 I did a long run with the soft tyre and didn’t feel good on it.” – the British driver pointed out – “Based on that experience I was more inclined to go with the hard, and as a team we thought the same. But as it turned out, the best strategy in the end was soft-medium-medium, or even medium-soft.”

“With the hard tyre I had a good restart (after the safety car), but we were unbalanced: we didn’t have enough front wing, so I had a lot of understeer. And I just couldn’t get the tyre to work. The medium was much, much better,” he continued.

“When you’ve got people like Lando Norris around you who managed to overtake with the medium, I had no chance of holding him off. So there are a lot of things to analyse,” Lewis Hamilton concluded in Saudi Arabia, admitting that both as a team and as an individual driver, it will be essential to make better decisions to extract the maximum result.