Lap 12, Hamilton pitted before Qin Miao to switch to new hard tires.
The team wanted Hamilton to use this set of hard tires for the rest of the race.
However, to avoid unsafe release due to other pitting cars, the release crew had Hamilton stop at the spot for over a second, and when he came out, the bottom right corner showed that this pit stop for Hamilton took 4.6 seconds.
This pit stop time is critical in F1, indicating that if Qin Miao pits on the next lap, he could come out ahead of Hamilton.
But it wasn't yet Qin Miao's pit window, and because of his tire management skills, his lap times were still faster than Hamilton's.
The team was also more inclined to switch Qin Miao to medium tires.
Although medium tires on this track were only about 0.4 seconds faster per lap than hard tires, and had much lower durability overall, their cost-effectiveness on the track didn't surpass hard tires.
