AUSTIN – Lewis Hamilton insists he won’t shy away from adopting an alternate strategy in the future, even if his plan did go “wrong” at the Singapore Grand Prix.

Hamilton made the call to use a one-stop strategy at the Marina Bay circuit, a decision which cost him three places in the closing laps.

Lewis Hamilton will ‘not shy’ away from bold strategy calls

While polesitter Max Verstappen and Hamilton’s teammate Charles Leclerc started the race on soft tyres, the Briton opted for the medium Pirelli tyres.

Yet, he was the first of the leading trio to pit, hinting at a two-stop strategy even though he had swapped to the soft tyres, covering the mandatory two compounds.

Ferrari expected Hamilton to pit for a second time when the Virtual Safety Car was triggered by Lance Stroll’s stricken Aston Martin, but he instead stayed out.

It was a decision that cost him three places in the final laps.

Hamilton was heard apologising to Ferrari over team radio at the chequered flag, telling the team: “Sorry, boys, I let you down today with that strategy. My call.”

He later wrote on Instagram that he had chosen a “strategy that ultimately didn’t deliver. It’s a painful lesson to learn, but I take full responsibility for the decisions I made.”

But despite his mea culpa in the immediate aftermath, Hamilton says he has no intention of changing his willingness to gamble on a strategy if he thinks there’s a chance that he could win a Grand Prix.

After all, the seven-time world champion believes his strategy of starting on the medium tyres and running a one-stop race would’ve worked if his medium tyres had not gone off the cliff so quickly.

“I think, well, firstly, you learn from these experiences,” he said during Thursday’s FIA press conference in Austin. “It’s rare that I find myself in that position.

“Of course, the next couple of days didn’t feel so great, but you live, and you learn.

“I think when I was lining up on the grid, when I knew I was going to be third – I’m always looking at ways to win.

“I’m always looking at doing potentially something different. And I wanted to be on a different strategy, not just the same strategy as Charles, where we just follow each other.

“The strategy ultimately, we assumed that Max would be potentially quick and the strategy showed us finishing second and third, and that’s not enough for me. I wanted to have options and see what could be possible should the tyre last.

“If the medium tyre could last longer, maybe you go deeper into the race, but it wasn’t the case when I got going, and it didn’t feel great in the first stint.

“Then, obviously, coming out behind Charles and losing a lot of time with him on a slower tyre, which I was on at the beginning, and I had the pace on the soft, it was a bit of a similar scenario to Zandvoort.

“But I think I was coming towards the pit lane entry and I didn’t know Charles was coming in, because I think he’d only recently stopped. It was a split-second decision, and I decided to stay out.

“As soon as I was alongside the pit lane, I realised it was probably the wrong decision. But I owned up to it, took responsibility for it, and you move on.

“We’ve had good conversations in the background about how we can do better together and how we can collaborate better. But I think nothing’s changed in terms of how well we work together in the background.

“I truly believe my job, rather than to follow suit always, is to continuously challenge the team and myself, including constantly challenging the norms. And that’s ultimately how I’ve got to where I am. I will not shy away from that.

“Sometimes it doesn’t go well, and that was one of those times. But you live to fight another day. And we win and lose as a team, so we carry the weight and the cost together.

“It definitely hurts when I lose points for the team. It’s not something I do very often, but I’ll double the efforts to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

Hamilton is third in the Drivers’ Championship on 229 points, 111 behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli but only nine behind George Russell.