Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur has detailed what he called a “succession of mistakes” from Lewis Hamilton during the Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix.
Ferrari left Hungary frustrated after any hopes for a good result ebbed away following a series of mistakes by Lewis Hamilton that proved costly.
The seven-time world champion had spent much of the race battling Max Verstappen’s Red Bull, when he came in for his final pit stop following the Virtual Safety Car deployment to recover the stricken McLaren of Oscar Piastri.
But Hamilton locked up on pit entry, and upon being released was clocked at being just 0.1km/h over the speed limit. The transgression resulted in a mandatory five-second time penalty, which saw him drop to fifth at the chequered flag, having crossed the line in fourth place behind teammate Charles Leclerc.
It capped a difficult weekend for Hamilton, who had already been demoted three places on the grid in qualifying after being found to have impeded Piastri in Q3. The pit-lane infringement was his fourth penalty in as many race weekends, adding to sanctions picked up at Silverstone and Spa earlier in the season.
Team principal Fred Vasseur hinted however that he would not ask Hamilton to change his approach despite costing Hamilton dearly on track.
“It’s difficult to put all the penalties in the same basket; for me, the accident with [George] Russell [at Spa] it’s a race incident,” he said.
“And I think if he has to do it again, I would ask him to do exactly the same because he can’t go on the curb and so on.
“Today, it’s probably that succession of mistakes that he locked the wheel in the pit stop, that we lost a couple of tenths during the pit stop, and then probably he was trying to be optimum on the pit limit release, and it was a bit too early than the optimum.”
Fred Vasseur defends Lewis Hamilton’s race
Vasseur sympathised with Hamilton, and took the positives away from a difficult final race before the summer break for the team.
“I think it’s when you start to do a mistake, it’s quite easy to do more than one, and this weekend is a good example that when we were trying to push during the pit stop and so, we were losing something that the pit exit, and we were two tenths of a second behind someone, and it’s a succession of facts,” he said.
“The pace was decent, but we were completely unable to overtake Max [Verstappen] at the beginning, then [Oscar] Piastri, and point taken for the rest of the season.”
Ferrari’s inability to convert competitive pace into results has been a recurring frustration this year, and Hungary followed that pattern. Hamilton himself later suggested his final pit stop may not have even been necessary, saying his tyres felt strong enough to have continued fighting for a podium without the extra stop that ultimately triggered the speeding infringement.
With Lando Norris taking victory ahead of Verstappen and championship leader Kimi Antonelli, the result leaves Ferrari with plenty to reflect on over the summer break, as Vasseur looks to eliminate the small errors that have repeatedly undone strong underlying pace this season.n.”
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