Vasseur Defends Ferrari’s Miami Team Orders Amid Hamilton’s Frustration

Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur has stood by the team’s decision-making process regarding the team orders situation that unfolded between Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton during the Miami Grand Prix. While acknowledging Hamilton’s frustration, Vasseur maintained that the team took the “tough decision” in the interest of the team as a whole.

Hamilton, who was running on a different strategy with medium tyres, found himself behind seventh-placed Leclerc, who was on the hard compound. As Hamilton felt he had the pace to catch Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli ahead, he suggested being let by. However, the team’s apparent delay in making the call led to Hamilton’s increasing frustration, with the seven-time World Champion sarcastically commenting over the radio, “Have a tea break while you are at it.“

Explaining the team’s thought process, Vasseur stated, “It didn’t take so long – it was one lap and a half or something like this. And when you have two cars not with the same strategy, the first thing for me to understand [is] if it’s faster when you are behind due to the DRS or not.”

He continued, “It took one lap, it means that it’s one minute 30 to understand, and then we asked them to swap. Honestly, you can argue at the end that we would have been better to do it directly, but we didn’t know if it was the DRS effect or not.”

Vasseur emphasized the difficulty of such decisions, saying, “I think we take the tough decision, because it’s never easy to ask Charles or Lewis to swap. But we did it, and they did it on track. I didn’t see a lot of teams doing it.”

When the team ultimately decided to reverse the positions after Hamilton failed to catch Antonelli, Leclerc suggested discussing the matter later. Vasseur clarified, “If you ask them to swap, it’s because we think that the second car is faster than the first one at the stage of the race. We try to catch up the guy who is in front, and if we don’t do it, we swap back to respect the initial position at the stage of the race when it was clear that we wouldn’t be able to fight Antonelli with Lewis.”

Vasseur admitted he could understand Hamilton’s frustration, stating, “I had a discussion with Lewis, and I can perfectly understand the frustration. They are champions, they want to win races. We are asking them to let their team mate go. It’s not easy. It’s never easy, and I didn’t see another team do it today, but it’s why we took the responsibility to do it because it’s the policy for the team.”

Despite the controversy, Vasseur maintained that Ferrari handled the situation well, concluding, “We are racing for Ferrari first, and honestly, I think as a team, we did a good job. Again, we can argue that it would have been better to do it the lap before, but when you are in control and you have to understand if the car that’s behind is faster than the car in front just from DRS or not, it’s not an easy call.”