Lewis Hamilton mistake revealed: Mercedes boss confirms Sebastian Vettel regret
LEWIS HAMILTON could have won the Australian Grand Prix if he had been told to driver FASTER, says one of Mercedes’ top chiefs.
Lewis Hamilton: I'm in disbelief over loss of race
Lewis Hamilton came second in Melbourne despite leading the race from the start.
The Brit was overtaken by Sebastian Vettel during a virtual safety car, following a glitch with Mercedes’ timings device in the paddock.
It meant Hamilton was forced to watch Vettel saunter to victory in the first Grand Prix of the season on a track that his notorious for its lack of overtaking.
Mercedes have confirmed the “bug” in their system has been found.
But trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin also revealed his regret that the team also neglected to order Hamilton to pick up the pace.
Lewis Hamilton finished second at the Australian Grand Prix
We weren’t telling Lewis to push any harder
“We could have pushed the car harder,” said Shovlin.
“At this point of the race we were still following a fuel profile that meant we were having to do some saving with fuel. Melbourne’s a very difficult race to do on that 105kg limit.
“And also we were being a bit cautious with the tyres.
“Because the team thought that we were safe anyway, we thought that Sebastian was going to come out behind us, we weren’t telling Lewis to push any harder.
Lewis Hamilton fell behind Sebastian Vettel after not driving fast enough when the Ferrari pitted
“That’s really one of the big frustrations we have coming away from Melbourne is the car was clearly quick enough to win the race, if we’d managed the race differently we could have won it.
“But at this point we were lulled into this false sense of security and we didn’t have Lewis driving as fast as we could.
“That’s one of those areas where in future, we need to make sure we get more margin.”
Mercedes chief Andrew Shovlin regrets not telling Lewis Hamilton to go faster
Lewis Hamilton had qualified a staggering six tenths of a second quicker than the rest of the pack on Saturday.
But he may not have it all his own way in Bahrain next time out, with the 3.9-mile circuit a far slower track than Melbourne.
McLaren clearly think they can get something from the Bahrain Grand Prix, having selected nine sets of supersoft tyres for the race, while Hamilton and his rivals have all gone for seven.