Hamilton: second place

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Lewis Hamilton has claimed that he didn't expect to finish in the top five at the Turkish Grand Prix after McLaren Mercedes decided to run him on a three-stop strategy during the race.

The decision is understood to have been made in conjunction with Bridgestone engineers earlier in the weekend due to fears that Hamilton's style of driving might provoke a tyre failure.

"Bridgestone were concerned the tyre was going to fail as it did last year," said Hamilton, who suffered a costly blowout in Turkey last August. "That put us in not such a strong position to win the race."

A Bridgestone spokeswoman said the concerns were raised before Saturday's qualifying.

"We had the issue with Lewis last year at this race, brought about by turn eight specifically being anti-clockwise triple-apex with very high g-forces," she said.

"He had a specific problem last year, most noticeably, but several other drivers we noticed had internal tyre problems.

"Based on that, we changed the construction and strengthened it over the winter period and then brought those tyres to all the races this year.

"In actual fact, nobody else has had a repetition of any of those problems this year, with the exception of Lewis," she added.

"He is the one driver who perhaps with his style of driving has put higher forces onto his front right tyre."

With the strategy causing Hamilton to run with a lighter car than his rivals throughout the race, it made for a compelling spectacle - the Englishman passing race leader Felipe Massa on lap 23.

Surprised

Yet, according to conventional wisdom, three-stopping ultimately remains a slower alternative to two-stopping and so Hamilton was pleasantly surprised at finishing in second place, behind Massa but ahead of World Champion Kimi Raikkonen.

"I'm thrilled," Hamilton exclaimed in the post-race press conference. "Before the race I thought top five would be good. I was just hoping to finish in the points...(With three stops) there was definitely not as big a chance as winning."

One bonus of the strategy was that it enabled Hamilton to use the softer tyre, which had to be used for at least one stint during the race, for just a handful of laps towards the end.

Tellingly, it was only during those closing laps that Hamilton suffered in comparison to the two Ferraris.

"The soft was definitely the worse tyre, " he concluded. "At the end I was really struggling."