They gave Lando only two options, the soft to match Lewis (ahead) or the hard to match Max (behind). The medium was available, but crucially they didn’t offer it to him, nor did her correct them.
I may be misremembering, but I thought they offered soft to cover Hamilton or medium to cover Verstappen…? They’d also told him earlier in the race that they had mediums and that Mercedes didn’t.
A lap or two later, when it was clear Max had better pace on the hards, it became evident it was a game of who (if anyone) could keep the softs in play for long enough. My armchair view is that that’s where Lando lost second: Hamilton managed his pace perfectly while Lando was full tilt gunning for the win—and it was largely him that put himself in that position by missing his pit line, which is largely what lost him the lead.
Clearly McLaren bungled the lap time estimates in not stacking Piastri, but other than that and perhaps giving Norris too much say on tyres, I don’t think the team dropped any major bollocks.
Still, nice to see another best-of-season weekend from Silverstone, and another Silverstone masterclass from Hamilton. Perfectly managed pace throughout. My overriding thought after qualifying was “you never bet against Hamilton at Silverstone”—especially when there’s rain on the radar. Should have put a few quid on it ?
