Ferrari boss Maurizio Arrivabene has defended Kimi Raikkonen's strategy at the Singapore Grand Prix, saying the team would have been "crazy" not to cover off Lewis Hamilton's pit stop.
Raikkonen passed Hamilton for third at mid-distance as the world champion struggled with his brakes, forcing Mercedes to bring him in for ultra-soft tyres. Hamilton emerged in fourth on the quickest tyre but some way down on Raikkonen, meaning he had 16 laps to catch and pass the Ferrari on one of the toughest circuits for overtaking.
However, Ferrari immediately called Raikkonen in to pit, with Hamilton's out-lap on the purple compound quick enough to move him ahead of the 2007 world champion. Raikkonen was never able to get close enough to Hamilton to pass in the closing stages -- but Arrivabene insisted it was the right call.
"To be 100% sure, you have to look at the data," he said. "It was the right decision to take.
"If we were having huge degradation [on the soft tyres] and Mercedes were taking us, we would have been crazy. We took a decision looking at our data. The thing to do afterwards is verify if our data was right."
After the race, Raikkonen observed that there were different decisions Ferrari could have made on strategy. The Finn was certain he could have got to the end of the race on the soft tyre, which he had been on before Ferrari called him in to cover Hamilton's stop.