44 Shades Of Red🍓

The German Sky channel has released the full version of Hamilton's lap under the virtual safety car, including the lost radio communications. There are a couple of minor errors in the transcript – for example, at the beginning, it refers to a "gap" rather than a "car," but these are insignificant. The main point is that Santi calls Hamilton into the pits twice.

The second time is right before the pit lane, and it's clear that Lewis actually slows down. This is also confirmed by the telemetry, which shows that Lewis is traveling at 80 km/h at that point, just like Leclerc was three seconds earlier, while drivers usually travel at 140 km/h under the VSC.

There's even a theory that Hamilton was simply called in too late, and he didn't have time to react. However, it seems that's not the case – Lewis was hesitating, unsure whether to stop or not, because the information he received beforehand (about the pace of his rivals and the potential time loss during the pit stop) was quite contradictory.

This once again proves that the driver simply doesn't have enough information to make decisions (which is why I'm always puzzled when McLaren asks their drivers which strategy to choose – although this happens much less often this year). But in order to blindly follow the team's instructions, the driver needs to trust them. And right now, Hamilton doesn't trust them in this regard, so he was trying to make the decision himself.