MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – Lewis Hamilton downplayed his frustration-laden messages to Ferrari during the Miami Grand Prix on Sunday, stating that he will not apologize for being a fighter. Furthermore, he added that he and team boss Fred Vasseur resolved the situation immediately after the race.
Hamilton was annoyed by Ferrari’s indecision regarding the change of positions with his teammate, Charles Leclerc, while they were chasing Andrea Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes in sixth position.
Hamilton wanted to overtake to get closer. Ferrari took a while to decide, and after the change, Hamilton joked: “Take a tea break since you’re at it, come on!”.
Unable to catch Antonelli, Ferrari reversed the change in the final stages, which meant Leclerc finished ahead.
When race engineer Riccardo Adami told Hamilton that Williams’ Carlos Sainz was 1.4 seconds behind, Hamilton sarcastically replied: “Do you want to let him pass too?”
After the race, Hamilton explained that the comments were a product of frustration over Ferrari’s indecision. “It wasn’t even anger,” Hamilton said.
“It wasn’t like, ‘Shit!’ and all that. It’s like, ‘Make a decision! You’re sitting there, you have things in front of you, make the decision, quick’. That was me. It was me, we’re panicking, trying to keep the car on the track. We’re calculating things quickly.”
Lewis Hamilton
When told that his messages were the most entertaining part of the race, Hamilton laughed and said: “Jeez, at least it was all family-friendly, right?”
“I don’t know what you guys are going to write, or if I was disrespectful or whatever, honestly I don’t think I was. I was like, ‘Come on guys, I want to win.’ I still have the fire inside me. I could feel a bit of it really surging there. I’m not going to apologize for being a fighter. I’m not going to apologize for still wanting it. I know everyone on the team wants it too.”
“And I really believe that when we solve some of the problems we have with the car, we will be back in the fight with Mercedes, with the Red Bulls.”
Before speaking to the media, Hamilton and Vasseur spoke. “Fred came to my room. I just put my hand on his shoulder and said, ‘Mate, calm down, don’t be so sensitive.’ I could have said much worse things on the radio. You hear some of the things others have said in the past, some of that was sarcasm.”
“Look, you have to understand that we are under enormous pressure inside the car. You are never going to receive the most peaceful messages in the heat of battle. And yes. It was good.”
Vasseur suggested that he was happy with the way the team had executed the strategy and the situation between its two drivers.
“I can perfectly understand the frustration. They are champions, they want to win races. We ask them to let the team pass. It’s not easy. It’s never easy. And I didn’t see another team do it today. That’s why we take responsibility for doing it. Because it’s the team’s policy. We are racing for Ferrari first, and honestly I think as a team we did a good job.”
Fred Vasseur
“It can be argued that it would have been better to do it half a lap before or half a lap after. But when you’re in the pit wall and you have to understand if the car behind is faster than the car in front, just because of DRS [drag reduction system] or not, it’s not an easy decision.”
“It’s always much easier to do it two hours later. We asked them to do it; they did it. Now, the frustration when you’re in the car, I can understand it perfectly. And we had a conversation, and it was much more relaxed.”
It was a frustrating moment in what was a disappointing race for Ferrari. Hamilton had put on a strategic masterclass to secure a podium in Saturday’s sprint race, but neither he nor Leclerc were a factor in the fight for the podium on Sunday.
Leclerc finished seventh, with Hamilton eighth, while McLaren achieved a 1-2.
Reflecting on Ferrari’s low final position, Vasseur said the controversy over the radio messages overshadowed the most worrying factor. “It’s not the story of the day,” he said. “I would be much more interested in talking about why we finished a minute behind McLaren.”
