The 2025 Monaco Grand Prix was one more race that left Ferrari in fire-fighting mode afterwards, owing to obvious tensions in radio visitors between Lewis Hamilton and his engineer.
Hamilton was fifth and team-mate Charles Leclerc got here second, yielding Ferrari’s greatest mixed factors rating from a non-sprint weekend this season. And but, neither driver was in a very celebratory temper; Hamilton was noticeably downbeat and taciturn in post-race.
Leclerc may need been hoping for higher after difficult for pole on Saturday, and Hamilton actually was as he misplaced three grid positions as a consequence of a penalty for impeding Max Verstappen at Massenet throughout Q1.
The incident, brought on by the group misinforming him about Verstappen’s method, set in movement a sequence of occasions that led him to getting “caught in no man’s land” throughout the race. What’s extra, it additionally introduced extra peevish-sounding radio exchanges between Hamilton and race engineer Riccardo Adami to the fore.
Later, Ferrari group principal Frederic Vasseur sought to dismiss any concept of friction between the 2.
“As a result of when the driving force is asking one thing between Flip 1 and Flip 3, we now have to attend [until he reaches] the tunnel to answer, to keep away from talking with him throughout the corners,” mentioned Vasseur.
“It is not that we’re sleeping, it isn’t that we’re having a beer on the pitwall, it is simply because we now have a piece of the observe the place we agreed earlier than to talk with him.
Frederic Vasseur, Ferrari
Photograph by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Pictures by way of Getty Pictures
“And actually, it isn’t a rigidity that the man is asking one thing, he is between the partitions, he is below strain, he is preventing, he is at 300km/h between the partitions.
“I am completely advantageous and I spoke with him [Hamilton] after the race – he was not upset in any respect.”
Whereas this all sounds believable sufficient – drivers typically chafe at being requested questions or supplied info whereas the psychological bandwidth is occupied by a difficult set of corners – additionally it is extremely generic. And essentially the most peculiar change got here after the race, not throughout it.
“It is a P5,” mentioned Adami on the radio on the cool-down lap.
“Misplaced a whole lot of time in visitors. The remaining we have to examine. And decide up [spent tyre rubber] please. “Yeah, huge thanks to the boys, as I mentioned, for fixing the automobile [after Saturday’s practice crash],” replied Hamilton.
“It’s not been the best of weekends, however we reside to battle one other day, so… yeah.”
Radio silence then adopted, damaged by Hamilton asking, “Are you upset with me or one thing?” – to which he additionally obtained no reply.
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photograph by: Peter Fox / Getty Pictures
Such exchanges must be weighed in context, particularly when performed over the TV broadcast, since F1 has current kind in presenting group radio in a deceptive vogue to amplify the drama. However that is understood to be the precise manner the dialog performed out.
It additionally adopted an change late within the race the place Hamilton requested if the group in entrance of him on observe – Verstappen, Lando Norris, Leclerc and Oscar Piastri have been “nonetheless almost a minute forward”.
Adami’s reply – “Charles on medium [tyres] and McLarens on exhausting, in [Turn] 16, very shut to one another preventing” – was deemed unsatisfactory.
“You are not answering the query,” replied Hamilton. “It would not actually matter, I suppose. I used to be asking if I’m a minute behind or…”
“He’s 48 seconds [ahead],” ultimately got here the reply.
The tenor of neither change might be defined within the context of the place Hamilton occurred to be on observe, and if he was “not upset in any respect” when he spoke to Vasseur after the race, he had cheered up significantly between the media pen and the group principal’s workplace.
Hamilton crossed the road 51.387s after race winner Norris, and 48.256s after team-mate Leclerc. This may have rankled Hamilton, as will having spent the race within the aforementioned “no man’s land” as a direct results of the group mistakenly informing him that Verstappen was slowing down on that Q1 lap.
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photograph by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Pictures
The grid penalty left him behind Isack Hadjar’s Racing Bulls automobile and Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin for the primary stint, till they pitted on the finish of laps 14 and 16 respectively.
Two laps of clear air earlier than his personal cease enabled Hamilton to overcut them each, however by this level he had leaked 12s to his teammate as a result of the entrance group, led by Norris, have been doing much less tyre-management than Hadjar was to try to construct a niche.
Leclerc’s first cease on lap 23 was costlier when it comes to lap time than Hamilton’s however from there the overall pattern was for the hole to develop – between laps 33 and 39 he was shedding between one and three seconds a lap to Leclerc.
The information additionally exhibits his out and in laps round his pitstop on the finish of lap 56 have been additionally noticeably expensive.
A few of these losses might be attributed to visitors – the Racing Bulls and Williams ways of getting one driver bunch the sphere so their team-mate might pit with out value meant the hole between Alex Albon in eleventh (on lap 57) and Nico Hulkenberg in 18th was simply 11s.
These vehicles had moved over well sufficient – for essentially the most half – because the main group of 4 got here by to lap them however had then resumed their pissed off dance and have been slower to half methods for Hamilton.
However a lot of the 48s deficit got here from Hamilton nonetheless not with the ability to conduct his SF-25 fairly as shortly as Leclerc. He places it all the way down to relative unfamiliarity with baked-in Ferrari efficiency traits, however three tenths of a second right here and there add as much as an enormous deficit over a race distance.
As Hamilton himself mentioned after qualifying: “This weekend it has been a little bit of a steep studying curve.”
Learn Additionally:
On this article
Stuart Codling
System 1
Lewis Hamilton
Ferrari
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