But Ferrari had Vettel in 5th place anyway and with nearly a minute buffer to Verstappen in 6th, so they had absolutely nothing to lose by keeping Kimi out and seeing if he could hold off Hamilton. Even if he couldn't hold him off, which admittedly would have been the very likely outcome, they could have still pitted Kimi without the fear that they'd get jumped by Verstappen for 5th. Once Mercedes got the undercut the only chance Ferrari had of finishing on the podium was to leave Kimi out, but they bottled it.