‘Are you upset with me?’: Hamilton fights with Ferrari AGAIN as team radio drama escalates
Lewis Hamilton’s frustrations with Ferrari reared their head once again in Monaco with the seven-time world champion’s comments over the team radio and post-race raising eyebrows.
Hamilton finished fifth in the Monaco Grand Prix, making up two places after a penalty for impeding Max Verstappen in qualifying relegated him from fourth to seventh on the grid.
Moving up the field is an impressive feat given how hard overtaking has been around the iconic street circuit in years, but Hamilton was unhappy with how far behind the front four he was.
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The Brit was 51 seconds behind countryman Lando Norris, who won from pole, while he was 30 seconds behind fourth-placed Verstappen.
Well-timed pit stops making the most of new, mandatory two pit stops rule unique to Monaco allowed Hamilton to surpass Isack Hadjar and Fernando Alonso, but he believes he could do no more.
“I think from where I was, a three-place grid penalty moving forwards back to fifth, I think was decent – the best I could do,” Hamilton said.
He went onto stay that the race had been a “miserable” experience, slamming the much-criticised nature of the track.
“The races here are generally, unless you’re first and in the lead, even when you’re in the lead, it’s not that fun,” Hamilton said.
“Just a nice reward at the end but other than that, anything but first is kind of empty.”
Local hero Charles Leclerc’s runner-up finish was a positive for Ferrari, but they will also leave the principality scratching their heads about how to improve the Hamilton situation.
The 40-year-old said post-race that he felt like he was “in no man’s land” on Sunday, and it comes after he repeatedly argued with his team in Miami, telling them to “have a tea break” because of their indecision as to let him pass Leclerc or not.
“I can’t comment on the rest of the race, for me I was in the middle of nowhere,” Hamilton told Sky Sports.
“I started seventh, was behind two cars for some time, managed to clear them, then I was in no man’s land after that.
“The gap was relatively big and I was not racing anyone. I needed a Safety Car or something to come into play but it didn’t happen. It was pretty straightforward from there.”
Tensions between Hamilton and the Ferrari team heightened on lap 17 when race engineer Ricciardo Adami said over the team radio to “push now, this is our race”.
Hamilton was well behind the leading four drivers at the time, and was bemused by Adami’s words.
“The information wasn’t exactly that clear,” Hamilton said. “I didn’t really understand ‘this is our race’.
“I didn’t know what I was fighting for. Was I fighting for the next spot ahead? But, in actual fact, when I look at the data I wasn’t anywhere near any of the guys up front.
“I used up my tyres a lot in that moment but I was so far away from them anyway.”
The radio drama did not end there with another unusual exchange taking place during Hamilton’s cool-down lap.
Adami confirmed his fifth place finish, and then the driver said he has “lost a lot of time in traffic”.
But we went on to thank the team for having repaired his car in time for qualifying after a crash in final practice, and he said they “live to fight another day”.
Further around the lap with little response coming from the other end of the radio, Hamilton queried: “are you upset with me or something?”.
Team boss Frederic Vasseur tried to hose down any speculation of problems between the driver and the race engineer, however.
He said the silence was purely to do with Hamilton’s location on the track, and that his boom recruit was “not upset at all”.
“Because when the driver is asking something between turn one and turn three, we have to wait [until] the tunnel to reply, to avoid to speak with him during the corners,” Vasseur said.
“It’s not that we are sleeping, it’s not that we are having a beer on the pit wall, it’s just because we have a section of the track, where we agreed before to speak with him.
“Honestly, it’s not a tension that the guy is asking something. He’s between the wall, he’s under pressure, he’s fighting.
“I spoke with him after the race, he was not upset at all.”