"Lewis Hamilton is number two at Mercedes now": Fans react to the F1 driver explaining the team's call on his strategy at the F1 Singapore GP

F1 fans were left raging after Lewis Hamilton explained the team's call to put him on soft tires at the start of the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix last Sunday. The seven-time world champion was the only driver on the softer tires inside the top 10 while everyone around him went for medium tires.

The decision caught everyone by surprise as the C5 Soft tire wasn't known for its durability and would put the Mercedes driver at a disadvantage later on and that's exactly what transpired. The British driver couldn't defend from Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc later in the race and fell to P5 after starting from P3.

In a recent media interaction after the race, Hamilton spoke about the strategy decision and mentioned that he was fighting with the team regarding the call.

"We sat in our meeting before the race, actually the night before, and they mentioned that they like to split the cars and I was perplexed by it," Lewis Hamilton said. "It didn't make sense to me and so I battled as hard as I could to fight to go on the medium tire. But the team continued to suggest that I start on the soft and when they took the tire blankets off, everyone was on mediums."

F1 fans took to social media to give their reactions to Lewis Hamilton's comments, a video of which was posted on X, with one fan claiming that the strategy call proved that the 39-year-old was the 'second driver' at the team now, saying:

"The relationship is over. Mercedes will give George every 50/50 decision. Lewis is number two in the team now."

"It's becoming increasingly clear that Mercedes is giving Lewis subpar strategies, almost as if they're intentionally making his toughest season even harder."

"‘Lewis is equally to blame’ Hope they can shut up now," a fan wrote.

"It’s time now to go rogue with this team. You can tell the relationship from Toto and Merc want to make it hard for Sir Lewis before he leaves. Thank god we have seen him win two races this season," another said.

"Dude. This team is absolutely diabolical," one fan said.

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Lewis Hamilton analyzes his Singapore GP on Sunday

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton said it was difficult for him to express his emotions as it was a tough race for him dropping out of the podium positions after an encouraging qualifying session on Saturday.

On the Mercedes' official website, the British driver said:

"It is hard to describe the range of emotions you feel when we have a difficult race like that. This year continues to be a testing one for everyone, but we are all pushing as hard as we can.

"We don’t always get things right and that was the case today with our strategy. We all head into the weekend, and every decision we take, with the right intentions, and sometimes it doesn’t work out," he said.

Hamilton has been struggling with the W15 after the summer break as evidenced by his results and has failed to recapture the momentum he showed four races before the mid-season break.