Lewis Hamilton said he was “so angry” with his team’s decision to put him on the soft tyres at the start of last weekend’s race.

The Mercedes driver fell from third on the grid to finish sixth. His team mate George Russell, who started alongside him on the medium rubber, was one of the three drivers who gained a place from him during the race.

Hamilton said Mercedes raised the possibility of splitting the strategies between their two drivers after they locked out the second row of the grid in qualifying on Saturday. He said he argued against it, but was overruled.

“We sat in our meeting in the morning of the race – actually the night before they already mentioned that they would like to split the cars – and for me, I was a bit perplexed by it,” Hamilton explained at an event in Kuala Lumpur for Mercedes sponsor Petronas.

“In the past when we’ve been in that position, normally, if George has qualified well like he normally does that and I’m out of the top 10 or something then we will split the strategies. But when we were so close, it didn’t make sense to me.

“So I battled as hard as I could to fight to go on the medium tyre but the team continued to suggest that I start on the soft. And then they took the tyre blankets off and everyone was on mediums.”

Hamilton was the only driver in the top 13 to start the race on anything other than the medium rubber. He said he was “so angry” over the decision.

“Already from that moment I’m frustrated,” said Hamilton. “Then I tried my best to keep up with the guys ahead, they were too fast. And then I just tried to make that tyre last as long as I could.

“I had to [pit] on lap 17. I knew from that moment that the race was done for me because the hard tyre was going to be a struggle in that heat.

“We’ve been struggling with the balance of the car all weekend, so we’ve been changing so many different things. We got a good qualifying but unfortunately the race was a bit too much of a struggle for us.”

Russell said he knew Hamilton would be dissatisfied with Mercedes’ strategy choice. “When I saw that, I was thinking, ‘Lewis won’t be happy’,” he said.

This was the sixth race this year in which Mercedes started their drivers on different tyre compounds. On the one previous occasion where the drivers started in consecutive positions on different compounds, in Miami, the driver ahead also started on softer rubber. On that occasion it was Russell.

Mercedes’ differences in starting tyres in 2024