In a season of tight margins thus far, the 2021 French Grand Prix was decided on strategy, with Red Bull and Max Verstappen being the ones who got it correct.
In what was a race where the table were constantly turning, it was, in honesty, a mix of good decisions from Red Bull and some poor strategic calls from Mercedes. Verstappen had surrendered the lead at the start, but an undercut, which Mercedes had miscalculated the power of, handed the lead back to Verstappen, who's two laps after his stop were a key factor in getting ahead of Hamilton.
Once in the lead, Red Bull chose to surrender it with what team principal Christian Horner described as a "ballsy call" and ask Verstappen to recover 18 seconds in 20 laps. He passed Hamilton with a lap and a half to go to take a win that underlines yet again the seriousness of the threat Mercedes face from a resurgent Red Bull this year, and moves the Dutchman into a 12-point championship lead.
Once Verstappen had regained the lead that he lost at the first corner, Hamilton had slightly started to close the gap down to his Dutch title rival; for nine laps Hamilton was within a second of Verstappen. "Max was being pushed very hard and wasn't able to manage the tyres," Horner said. "Mercedes were telling their drivers to put the pressure on us and we thought they were gearing up for a two-stop themselves." Verstappen came on the radio and said he could not keep up this level of pace and make it to the end of the race. "The strategists presented the options," Horner said, "and said: 'We've got nothing to lose.'"
Pitting out of the lead is never an easy call but on lap 32, only 14 laps after he had stopped for the first time, Verstappen was brought in again. This was not as easy a decision as it had been for Mercedes in Spain a month and a half ago, where they called in Hamilton out of second place and he fought back to win. Then, the predictions were saying it was a slam-dunk that Hamilton would catch and pass Verstappen before the end of the race. On Sunday, there were question marks. But Verstappen soon dispelled them.
The rate at which he was catching Hamilton progressively reduced - from two seconds a lap initially, to one second as the race entered its last 10 laps - but with two to go Verstappen was on the Mercedes' tail, and Hamilton had run out of front tyres. Half way around the penultimate lap, the Red Bull was through and away.
Hamilton felt that Mercedes were always on the back foot in France. "It just didn't work out," he said. "I am not massively disappointed; I did the best job I could today. There are things we could do slightly better, but overall they have been quicker than us all weekend and it's true reflection of the pace they have. "If he (Verstappen) had not made the mistake in Turn One, they would have led the race all the way probably."
And Horner felt Verstappen still would have won if Mercedes had pitted Hamilton for his first stop when they should have. "It would almost have been easier if they had kept track position," he said. "Because then we would have pulled the trigger anyway. It would have made our decision easier, but to make the decision [to pit] from the lead was quite a ballsy call. It was the fastest way we thought, to the end of the race."
In fact, though, the likelihood is that once Verstappen had lost the lead at the first corner, he would probably not have won had Mercedes not made their critical strategy error. Hamilton would have retained track position and would probably have been able to fend Verstappen off to the flag.
In the race as it happened, Hamilton really thrashed his tyres for those nine laps after his pit stop, so they were more or less gone by the time Verstappen caught him. Had he kept the lead, he would have been able to manage his tyres more carefully, and had a lot more life in them when Verstappen was trying to catch him. So had Mercedes not made their crucial error in delaying Hamilton's first stop, Verstappen would likely not have had enough to catch and pass the Mercedes before the end of the race.
In a season where the difference between victory and defeat are this small, decisions like these could be season defining.
Mercedes will be looking to bounce back in a double header at Red Bull's home circuit in Austria over the next two weeks.