Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari were quickly able to clear the air after “the heat of the battle” radio messages during the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix.
The race was yet another tricky one for the Scuderia, with Hamilton finishing eighth – a minute down on winner Oscar Piastri – with team-mate Charles Leclerc ahead in seventh.
Much of the Brit’s terse communications came amid his desire to have the team order a position swap with himself and Leclerc, having shown he was the faster of the two cars.
The length of time it took the team to make the decision sparked a sarcastic message from Hamilton, telling them to “have a tea break whilst you’re at it,” and later referring to it as “not good teamwork.”
Speaking to media including Motorsport Week after the race, Hamilton spoke of his post-race discussion with team boss Frederic Vasseur and clarified his attitude during the race.
“Fred came to my room, I just put my hand on his shoulder and I did calm down,” he said. “It’s not good to be so sensitive. I could have said way worse things on the radio.
“Here’s some of the things other people have said in the past. Some of it was sarcasm.
“Look, you’ve got to understand that we’re under a huge amount of pressure within the cars.
“You’re never going to get the most peaceful messages come through in the heat of the battle.”
Vassuer establishing ‘trust’ between Ferrari and Hamilton
Vassuer quickly corroborated Hamilton’s version of events, telling media including Motorsport Week that there’s “no issue at all” as he empathised with the predicament his driver faced.
“What’s happened today is absolutely not an issue for me,” he explained.
“I can perfectly understand their frustration when we are asking something like this.
“I never saw in my life and trust me that I had to ask this kind of situation a couple of times in my life, I never saw someone say, ‘OK, you can go, it’s not an issue, I’m pleased to let you go’.
“It’s frustrating because they have the feeling that they gave up a position.
“Now we did it just for the benefit of the team. Sometimes it’s working, sometimes not. But we did it with the same goal and they are perfectly aligned with us.
“The target was to catch Antonelli. That’s not an issue at all. And the relationship that we have is not an issue at all.”
Vasseur added that there’s a mutually established trust between the Ferrari pit wall and his drivers.
“We need to be clear between us that in this situation, he has to talk to us, he has to understand what was my feeling on the pit wall, that he can trust me, I can trust him, and the same with Charles, and when I have to take a decision, I’m taking a decision for Ferrari,” he said.
READ MORE – Why Ferrari insists it handled Miami GP driver swaps well
