Former Ferrari race engineer Rob Smedley has delivered a damning verdict on the team's handling of Lewis Hamilton during the Singapore Grand Prix, suggesting a costly strategy blunder could have been avoided.

The seven-time world champion found himself at the centre of controversy after opting against following Ferrari's instructions to pit under Virtual Safety Car conditions, a decision which ultimately left him fighting an uphill battle as his tyres deteriorated.

Hamilton's decision to stay out proved costly, with the Brit unable to maintain his pace as his soft tyres (now more than 40 laps old) faded. He would fall from P3 to a final position of P6 in the closing stages.

While Hamilton has since taken responsibility for the mistake, former Ferrari engineer Smedley believes the Italian outfit should have done more to prevent the situation from unfolding.

The former race engineer, who famously worked alongside Felipe Massa during his time at Maranello, insisted that teams must be prepared to stand their ground when drivers question crucial strategy calls.

Former Ferrari engineer delivers blunt Hamilton verdict

Smedley believes Ferrari should have been far more assertive with Hamilton, arguing that the team possessed vital information which the driver simply could not access from behind the wheel.

Speaking on the High Performance Racing podcast, he said: "You have to be fairly adamant. That is the relationship that that the race engineer and or the team need to have with the driver," Smedley explained.

"I've had that many many times when the drivers have said like, 'Are you sure? Are you sure?' I'm like, 'I'm f***ing 100% sure. Just get in. We have more information than you do'."

Smedley went on to explain why drivers cannot always be trusted to make the final call on tyre strategy, particularly when it comes to predicting a sudden drop-off in performance.

"The one thing the driver never knows is what the life is. They'll certainly tell you when it's at the end of life, right? But they don't know it. They can't predict it because it feels great and then it hits something called a cliff, right? And then at that point it feels really bad. all the temperature goes out of it.

"But you don't know where it is. You you can't predict when it's going to come. So, the team has all of that information. The team knows full well and the team was especially sat with that information based on Max Verstappen's stop that we've already said should have been high 20s, right?"

Ferrari accused of throwing away valuable points

Smedley believes Ferrari had enough evidence from Verstappen's earlier stop to recognise the danger of keeping Hamilton out on track. He believes the team should have taken a firmer stance with Hamilton.

"So I think they should have insisted that he come in. Now Lewis has been really good about it and he said that you know this is all my fault and blah blah blah but again I just think like that they could have had so many more points out of that race."

Smedley also suggested that an earlier stop could have left Hamilton fighting much further up the order, particularly with McLaren star Lando Norris struggling for pace towards the end of the race.

"And if they had have stopped by the way - you know he was just behind Charles and I think with the way that Lando [Norris] dropped off towards the end - I think that he could have you know still finished maybe just behind Charles possibly maybe behind Charles still possibly more than likely behind Kimi [Antonelli].

"So, he would have been in a much better position."