Lewis Hamilton on Ferrari radio messages: ‘I won’t apologise for being a fighter’
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla — Lewis Hamilton downplayed his agitated messages to Ferrari at the Miami Grand Prix, saying he’s not going to apologise for being a fighter, adding that he and team boss Fred Vasseur immediately smoothed things over post-race.
Hamilton was frustrated with Ferrari dithering over a driver swap with teammate Charles Leclerc as they chased down Mercedes‘ Andrea Kimi Antonelli in sixth.
Hamilton had wanted to get by in order to try and get closer. Ferrari spent some time agreeing and after the swap took place, Hamilton quipped: “Have a tea break while you’re at it, come on!”
With Hamilton unable to catch Antonelli, Ferrari reversed the swap in the closing stages, meaning Leclerc finished ahead.
When race engineer Ricardo Adami told Hamilton Williams driver Carlos Sainz was 1.4 seconds behind, Hamilton replied sarcastically: “Do you want to let him by too?”
After the race, Hamilton said the comments were frustration at Ferrari’s indecision. “It wasn’t even anger,” Hamilton said.
“It wasn’t like, effing and blinding and anything like that. It’s like, ‘make a decision! You’re sitting there on the chair, you’ve got the stuff in front of you, make the decision, quick’. That’s how I was, I was me, we’re in a panic, we’re trying to keep the car on the track. We’re computing things fast.”
When told his messages were the most entertaining part of the race, Hamilton laughed and said: “Jeez, I mean, it was all PG at least, right?
“I don’t know what you’re going to write, or whether I was disrespectful or whatever, I honestly don’t feel I was. I was like, ‘come on guys, I want to win’.
“I’ve still got my fire in my belly. I could feel a bit of it really coming up there. I’m not going to apologise for being a fighter. I’m not going to apologise for still wanting it. I know everyone in the team does too.
“And I truly believe that when we fix some of the problems that we have with the car, we’ll be back in the fight with the Mercedes, with the [Red] Bulls.”
Before speaking to the media, Hamilton and team boss Vasseur had smoothed things over. “Fred came to my room. I just put my hand on his shoulder and like, ‘dude, calm down, don’t be so sensitive’. I could have said way worse things on the radio. You hear some of the things others have said in the past, some of it was sarcasm.
“Look, you’ve got to understand we’re under a huge amount of pressure within the car. You’re never going to get the most peaceful messages coming through in the heat of the battle. And yeah. It was fine.”
Vasseur suggested he was happy with how 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 are asking them to let the team go. It’s not easy. It’s never easy. And I didn’t see another team to do it today. That’s why we took the responsibility to do it. Because it’s the policy to the team. We are racing for Ferrari first and honestly I think as a team we did a good job.
“You can argue that it would have been better to do it half a lap before or half a lap later. But when you are in the pit wall and you have to understand if the car behind is faster than the car in front, just for DRS or not, it’s not an easy call.
“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 are in the car, I can perfectly understand this. And we had a discussion and it was much more relaxed.”
It was a frustrating moment in what was a disappointing race for Ferrari. Hamilton had turned in a strategic masterclass to score a podium in Saturday’s sprint race, but neither he or Leclerc had been a factor in the podium fight on Sunday.
Leclerc ended up finishing seventh, with Hamilton in eighth, as McLaren romped away to a dominant one-two.
Reflecting on Ferrari’s low finishing position, Vasseur said the controversy over the radio messages overshadowed the more concerning factor. “It’s not the story of the day,” he said. “I would be much more keen to speak about why we finished one minute behind McLaren.”
Source: espn.com