“We're very strong in high-speed corners, and our chassis generates a lot of front-end grip. Last year we had a chunking problem with the tyre; this time it was sidewall delamination. We're generating high vertical loads through those corners and that's the problem.
Bridgestone acknowledged as much, but they are good, strong partners and we'll continue to work with them to make sure we don't have any recurrence.
“On a circuit like this, once you see there's a tyre concern you have to put safety first. We took a decision and it was the right thing to do with the information we had available at the time.
“In a simple time trial, the difference between two stops and three is about five seconds over a full race distance. In reality, though, it's more than that because you don't always have the most co-operative of traffic.
“It was clearly a disadvantage to three-stop, otherwise it would have been a more fashionable strategy, so it would have been difficult to win even from pole. Given the way Lewis performed, though, he might just have done it.”
Whitmarsh was indeed full of praise for Hamilton's Turkish performance, and confident of a similarly strong showing – if not better – in the next race on the calendar around the winding streets of Monaco, a happy hunting ground for both driver and team in years gone-by.
“It [Turkey] was his finest race this year and he did it with the odds stacked against him,” the 50-year-old underlined. “He was just flat-out and really took the race to
Ferrari.
“The team has a great history [in Monaco], and we are naturally looking to add to that this year. It's a circuit both our drivers like, and I think we'll be competitive.”
