Former Jordan designer Gary Anderson has issued his thoughts on the strategic battles between Red Bull and Mercedes, and suggested that sometimes Lewis Hamilton can impede the calls of his team.

The Formula 1 title fight looks set to be decided by the slimmest of margins this season and that means that every call that driver and team makes between now and the end of the campaign has the ability to make or break a championship challenge.

Indeed, we saw in Turkey last time out the battle that can go on between the two parties with Lewis Hamilton disagreeing with Mercedes' insistence that he pitted before the end of the Grand Prix for fresh tyres, and with six races left to go everyone involved needs to be on the same page to ensure the championship is delivered.

For Anderson, then, it's the case that at times Hamilton's independent thinking in the car and own suggestions over strategy can be a hinderance as well as a help, and he's suggested perhaps Lewis needs to bow down to the Silver Arrows' pitwall more than he does in the final stages of this year.

"But one thing I would have to say is I believe Red Bull is more black and white in its strategies. It decides on a strategy as the race circumstances develop, commits to it and does it. Right or wrong, it’s gone with it, he said via The Race.

"Compared to that, there always seems to be a bit of confusion about Mercedes’ strategy, it’s never quite as decisive.

"Hamilton, I think, is a big part of that strategy reading. We obviously don’t hear everything on the radio, but from what we do hear Verstappen is pretty good at informing the team of what he’s feeling in his car. And that’s really where it ends for him. He doesn’t really do much more than that.

"Whereas Hamilton often seems to want to throw out extra information here and there, he sees that as part of the job. And that can sometimes be a big part of strategy decisions or indecision, as the case may be.

"But at the end of the day if the driver just reports what they’ve got, and the team can look at that alongside the other data it has from all the other cars, laptimes, section times, then the pitwall can make a firm call.

"There’s a lot less moaning about stuff from Max than there is from Lewis," Anderson continues.

"And that can all play a part in it. Because when you’re complaining to your team, your team is being forced to think in a direction away from what they would do themselves, because they’re trying to satisfy the strategy required and satisfy the driver as well, and sometimes those two don’t go together.

"In my book, Red Bull is slightly better at reading the situation and making the decisions than Mercedes is at this point in time.

Obviously Mercedes has won seven world championships so it doesn’t do too badly. But I think Red Bull is a little bit better at reading it and committing to it, then driving with it. It’s still hard to call, but I would give Red Bull that little bit of a headstart."