Lewis Hamilton Reveals the Tyre Debate That Sank His Heart Before Remarkable Bahrain GP Recovery to Podium

• Lewis Hamilton says his heart sank when Ferrari started him on slick tyres while most rivals fitted intermediates for a soaked Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia.
• The seven-time champion overruled a lap five call to switch to intermediates, telling his team to stick with the gamble and let the track dry.
• Hamilton fought back from P15 to finish third on the podium, behind winner Max Verstappen and runner-up Kimi Antonelli.

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The Call Made With No Clear View of the Track

Lewis Hamilton has opened up on the tyre debate that threatened to wreck his Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia before a recovery drive carried him back to the podium.

The Ferrari driver had qualified second at the Sepang International Circuit, with Malaysia hosting the race on the 2026 calendar, and arrived with real hope of fighting for a win. Those hopes nearly disappeared at the start when Ferrari sent both Hamilton and teammate Charles Leclerc out on soft slick tyres rather than intermediates, a decision that dropped the pair more than a minute behind the rivals who had chosen the correct rubber for a drenched track.

“My Heart Sank”

Hamilton had pushed for Ferrari to fit intermediates before the race started, and watched the gap to those on the correct tyre grow in front of him. He told Sky Sports F1 the moment summed up his mixed feelings about the eventual result.

“It’s a mixed emotion. On one side I’m really grateful to have got back to the podium,” Hamilton said. “And then on the other side, with the debates that we were having in the background, to then see the covers come off the car ahead and the one behind, them on wets and us on slicks, and the track being so tricky and dangerous at the beginning, it was definitely… my heart sank, and I was like, ‘that’s the race over’.”

Speaking in the post-race press conference, Hamilton walked through the minutes before the start that led to the call going wrong. “There was such a long wait and we were debating on what tyre to go on to. And I said, ‘look, there was a lot of spray on the laps to the grid’,” he said.

“And I went into the pit lane, I looked at the ground, I was like, ‘it’s still wet’. I went to the pit wall and I was like, ‘it’s still wet’. And they’re like, ‘yeah, but because it’s been so long, it’s definitely going to dry up real quick and maybe we’re already in the crossover’. So, anyways, as a team, we ended up taking that soft and when we were at the end of the pit lane and these two took off their blankets and they’re on inters, we were in trouble.”

Rejecting the Call to Pit

Hamilton’s afternoon could have unravelled further when, five laps in, the Ferrari pit wall tried to call him in to switch to intermediates. He refused, telling the team they had made their choice and had to see it through.

“We just had to stick with it. Like, we’ve made the decision and live with it,” Hamilton said. “And I think then, through that, as everyone’s overtaken me, they’re like, ‘we stop’. Because I know we’ve already made another 26 seconds. What’s the difference from that with one minute 40 [seconds] or whatever I was down? So I was just, ‘let’s just wait it out for the track to dry’.”

Asked how he would stop the same mistake happening again, Hamilton kept his answer short. “Yeah, not going to go to the casino with the guys,” he said.

The Turn in Fortune

The gamble paid off once the track began to dry and a Safety Car, triggered by Valtteri Bottas spinning his Cadillac into the gravel, bunched the field back together. From there, Hamilton began cutting through the cars ahead of him.

“And once it did, it felt good that I was catching people. The car felt great then after that,” Hamilton said. “Really good pit stops from my guys in the garage and then good strategy. But for us to get back to the podium, I never thought that that was going to be the case. But, of course, I’m really grateful that we managed to get back here.”

Hamilton’s recovery drive took him from a lap one low of P15 all the way to third, splitting race winner Max Verstappen and second-placed Kimi Antonelli from a podium he had feared was gone before it had properly begun.

Vasseur’s Verdict

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur praised the response from both his drivers after a difficult start, while acknowledging how hard the initial tyre call had been to get right from the pit wall.

“Overall, it’s a good result. If you consider that we were 21 and 22 on lap one, it’s a very strong performance,” Vasseur said. “The choice of the tyres, you can discuss at length. But I think 50 per cent of the cars went for slick, 50 for inters, from the pit lane you don’t have the global picture of the track, and it’s not easy to understand what is the exact situation, but, for sure, we were on the wrong side.”

Leclerc, switched onto intermediates earlier than his teammate after early contact forced a nose change, recovered to finish fourth behind Hamilton. “Charles had contact on lap one and we had to pit to change the nose. To come back from this position to finish P3, P4, it’s a strong result for the team,” Vasseur said. “Now we have to do the next step, but I’m quite happy with the Sunday afternoon, at least after 4.30pm we did a good job.”

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Written by

Jack Renn

Jack Renn is an editor at F1 Chronicle and a veteran motorsport journalist with 25 years of experience covering Formula 1 and international motorsport. A member of the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive (AIPS), the global body representing accredited sports journalists, Jack has spent his career reporting from paddocks and press rooms across the F1 calendar. His work spans race analysis, technical insight, and in-depth features, giving readers authoritative coverage grounded in decades of firsthand experience at the highest level of the sport.

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