What were they thinking???

[Scott]

On the feed of the race in China, the cameraman even showed concern for the tires on LH's car during his pit stop in that he zoomed in on them.  I was amazed that they were sending him out on those again...I think any sane person would have noticed the tread missing from half of the right wheel and most of the left. 

So what were they really thinking??  It can't be that they thought the tires would perform like slicks - they're rain tires for crying out loud - way softer than dry's, they wouldn't (and didn't) last another 20 laps.  And they couldn't have really thought that they would perform at all in the wet - there wasn't enough tread.

Lewis said later that it was a joint decision - he didn't think they were so bad, and I guess the engineers looked at his times and figured the same, but really, shouldn't they have at least had a set there and then make a final decision in the first second after the car came to a stop??  It was so painfully obvious that he was going to be in trouble.

I missed reading or hearing much discussion about who's brain fart that was to not hold him in the pit and run and get new tires.  At least he might have finished the race.  His off on the entry to pit lane was a bit strange too - it's as if LH thought that the gravel was hard and he could just putter through it - he could have been a bit more aggressive (might not have helped).  Lack of experience for sure.  With his tires in the state they were, he should have come in at about 5kph.

[johnbull]

I will never understand them not changing Lewis's tyres at the first stop. The fronts were like slicks. Of course they were bound to overheat on a drying track.

[raindancer]

Well LH was losing about 4 secs a lap to Kimi at that time. And if you notice LH tires were really shot a lot more than Alonso who was ostensibly in similar equipment. Maybe its the driving style which lead such fast degradation Lewis's tyres.

[Steven Roy]

His driving style no doubt had an effect but for the first part of the race he was doing considerably faster lap times than Alonso who was stuck behind Raikkonen.