Lewis Hamilton has revealed that Bridgestone advised McLaren regarding his tyre strategy for today's Turkish GP.

Unlike his rivals, particularly in the leading group, Hamilton opted for three stops, yet still manage to finish a strong second.

"The reason we went with a three stopper was due to Bridgestone being concerned as they thought the tyre was going to fail like it did last year," said the Englishman. "Therefore, they made us do a three stop as it was the safest route to go.

"Unfortunately for us, that put us in not such a strong position to win the race," he admitted. "However, I am given a problem and I deal with it and so do the team and that's why I still believe that we are the best."

Asked if he expected to adopt a similar strategy again this season, Hamilton replied: "It won't happen anywhere else. Last year I had the tyre blow-out here, so they were already quite worried. Coming into this weekend they thought they had fixed the problem and somehow we seemed to have the problem again. But then again in the race the tyres were fine.

"We were sort of put on the back foot going into qualifying knowing that we were not really in the shoot for the win even if we did get pole position. I struggled on my Q3 lap to get a good time, so even with a lighter car I was not able to put it on the front row. However, going into the race I remained optimistic and so did the team and we pushed through. I think the result is the result of hard work from all the guys. They did fantastic pit stops and I think for me I probably drove the best race I have ever done."

Explaining the decision, a Bridgestone spokeswoman told reporters: "We had the issue with Lewis last year at this race, brought about by turn eight specifically being an anti-clockwise triple-apex with very high g-forces. He had a specific problem last year, most noticeably, but several other drivers we noticed had internal tyre problems. Based on that, we changed the construction and strengthened it over the winter period and then brought those tyres to all the races this year.

"In actual fact, nobody else has had a repetition of any of those problems this year, with the exception of Lewis," she added. "He is the one driver who perhaps with his style of driving has put higher forces onto his front right tyre."

Asked if he was concerned at the threat of a failure, Hamilton admitted: "For sure it was on my mind at some stages. I was having some vibrations and I wasn't sure whether that was the tyre or whether that was a flat spot that I possibly picked up earlier on. So for sure it was in the back of my mind.

"I was checking the tyre nearly every lap on the exit of turn eight to see if… last time it was on the exit of turn eight it delaminated and the tyre exploded, so I was just making sure I kept an eye on that, so I could report to the team as quickly as possible and possibly come in. Fortunately the tyres were fine but no, it was all down to safety really, that was why we were forced into that because they didn't want to have another incident, a bit like the last race or like last year.

"There's nothing worse than having a tyre blow out at 200mph," he continued, "so they tried to avoid that. Unfortunately, it put us on the back foot, as I said. Without a three stop perhaps we would have had a better chance of winning the race, but nevertheless, I'm very happy with second."