Mercedes have been backed by a former world champion over their tyre strategy decision which left Lewis Hamilton unable to challenge Max Verstappen for the win in Mexico City.
The Dutchman cruised to victory in the Mexican Grand Prix, but in the opening stages of the race it did not look likely to play out that way. A tense tactical battle was promised as Mercedes and Red Bull started on different tyres in what was expected to be a two-stop race.
Verstappen was on the softs, which are faster but less durable than the mediums on Hamilton's car. So when the Red Bull driver was unable to pull away from his rival, eventually ducking into the pits for a pair of his own mediums, it looked like the Brit had the upper hand.
Hamilton stayed out for a few more laps before coming in to fit hard tyres. They were clearly planning to go to the end of the race, and engineers said several times throughout the race over team radio that they did not expect Verstappen to be able to do the same on his mediums.
But that's exactly what the Dutchman managed to do, looking after the rubber superbly well while still opening a decent gap to Hamilton. While Mercedes clearly got it wrong on the day, 2009 drivers' champion Jenson Button said he felt at the time that they were making the correct call.
"Mercedes, they're normally the best at strategy – they have been all year," he told Sky Sports' Any Driver Monday programme. "Even though they've not had such a competitive car, their strategy has always been fantastic and both drivers have done the best job they could with the package they had.
"Whereas it was a bit different in Mexico. I thought they could take it to Red Bull because of the way they are, always getting it right on strategy calls. But they didn't in terms of the tyre choice, which really surprised me.
"I didn't think Max would get to the end of the race on the mediums, so I'm with Mercedes on that. But Red Bull, obviously, they had all their ducks in a row and they got it right in terms of running the soft tyre and then the medium tyre until the end."
Red Bull's chief strategist Hannah Schmitz has earned a lot of praise this season for playing a key role in the team's dominance. That was recognised by Verstappen after his win in Hungary in the summer, after which he said: "Today, I think Hannah, our strategist, was insanely calm. Yeah, she's very good."
