Lewis Hamilton denied podium by Ferrari's 'ludicrous' strategy

Lewis Hamilton was denied a podium finish at the US Grand Prix due to "ludicrous strategy" from Ferrari, according to F1 insider Peter Windsor.

The seven-time world champion eventually came home in P4 at COTA on Sunday, two places behind Scuderia team-mate Charles Leclerc.

While there was much positivity about how the SF26 car performed in race trim after a miserable qualifying display on Saturday, Windsor believes yet another botched strategy call cost Hamilton dear in Texas.

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Ferrari 'could have taken the race to Kimi'

Speaking in a race debrief on his YouTube channel, he said: “What happened for second place was that Ferrari - despite not qualifying well and not getting the best from the cars in qualifying, and despite a ludicrous strategy on both cars - still managed to finish a relatively strong second.

"Reminding everybody I think who was watching that had they got it right, had they got the strategy right, had they qualified better, they could well have taken the race to Kimi.

“They might not have beaten him, but it would have been a decent motor race. But again, Ferrari managed to get it completely wrong. How they managed to do that, I have no idea, other than they were just rabbits in the headlights after what happened in Singapore."

Tyre selection cost Ferrari dear - Windsor

Windsor claims Ferrari made their biggest mistake before the race had even started with the tyre selection on both of their cars.

“Let’s go back to the start, because the start was what really blew it," he continued. "Ferrari had a new set of softs for Charles Leclerc but they didn’t have any new soft tyres for Lewis Hamilton. And yet they started them on used softs, which is bizarre - completely bizarre - because there was a decision already made for them.

“Start him [Hamilton] on mediums, go to hards, one-stop strategy. Charles Leclerc has got the new set of softs, put him on the softs, see what happens. There wouldn’t have been any aggravation in the garage had they done that, because Lewis didn’t have a new set of softs.

“But there was Lewis on a used set of soft tyres, what was all that about? He was never going to be as fast as Charles in the first phase of the race.

“The only possible way of running a two-stop strategy was if you started on new soft tyres and used the pace of those tyres in the opening phase of the race. But they didn’t do that. And to make matters worse, they went to a two-stop strategy with both cars. Why?"

'Bad calls' cost Hamilton a podium

Windsor believes had Ferrari got for a different strategy we would have likely seen Hamilton beating Red Bull's Max Verstappen for the final podium spot. Instead they delivered what he termed as "bad calls" and threw away more valuable points.

“They should have run a one-stop strategy anyway with both cars. What were they thinking? Where they were in the race, the only way to do anything to beat Max was to go to a one-stop strategy. Okay, Charles did beat him in the end, but Max's car right at the end of the race was terrible.

"But Lewis should have beaten Max as well. His car was good enough to beat Max, and he didn't even get on the podium, and that was because of just bad calls on the Lewis Hamilton car.”

Ferrari strategy questioned yet again

Ferrari's race strategy has been under the microscope in a big way in recent weeks, this was not the first time their decisions have been questioned afterwards.

For Hamilton it continues a particularly worrying trend - he has now finished behind team-mate Leclerc in seven out of the last 10 races, starting at Silverstone in early July.

The British star now only leads Leclerc by eight points in the Drivers' standings as we head to Mexico City this weekend for Round 19 of the 2026 championship.

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Written by

Graham Shaw - Consultant Editor

Digital sports leader with 30 years of senior level experience running global brands. Built sportinglife.com to be a behemoth in the UK as well as being in charge of the Planet Sport network of sites including planetf1.com, football365.com, teamtalk.com and planetrugby.com. Then grew goal.com to be the world's biggest soccer website in 18 languages and 37 territories. Was GM of Portals for Perform Group (now DAZN) with overall responsibility for sportingnews.com, spox.de and voetbalzone.nl.

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