‘I’m no pushover’: Hamilton fumes at Ferrari orders

Frustrated in Miami, Lewis Hamilton criticises Ferrari’s strategy calls and calls for bolder, faster decisions from the team pit wall.

After a tense Miami Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton had a simple message for Ferrari and team boss Frédéric Vasseur: don’t take things so personally.

The seven-time world champion voiced his frustration over team radio during a confusing race strategy involving team orders, as Ferrari’s disappointing 2025 season continued with another underwhelming result. Hamilton finished eighth, right behind teammate Charles Leclerc, after the two were told—twice—to swap positions in an attempt to chase down Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes for sixth place.

Hamilton, who was on faster medium tyres, was visibly annoyed at how long it took the team to let him pass Leclerc, who was running hard tyres. Even more frustrating was the late-race reversal of positions, which put Leclerc back ahead despite Hamilton having the better pace.

“Fred came into my room after the race,” Hamilton said. “I just put my hand on his shoulder and said, ‘Man, calm down. Don’t be so sensitive.’”

Hamilton made it clear that things could’ve been worse over the radio. “You hear what some drivers say—sometimes sarcastic, sometimes sharp. We’re under a lot of pressure in the car. The calm stuff rarely makes it to the air.”

He added that the post-race conversation was productive. “We agreed we needed to digest what happened. But in the moment, I told them, ‘Take a breath.’ I even joked about letting Carlos Sainz (now at Williams) through when they told me the gap.”

Asked if his radio outbursts were just heat-of-the-moment reactions, Hamilton shrugged it off: “It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t blind rage. It was more like, ‘Come on, make a call!’ You’ve got all the data. We’re out here trying to stay on track and calculate everything in real-time. Just decide.”

“I don’t know how it’ll be written up, or if it’ll be seen as disrespectful. I don’t think I was. Sure, people can be sensitive, but I’m not. And we need to toughen up a bit as a team.”

Hamilton remained defiant: “I want to move forward, I still have that fire in me. I’m not going to apologise for being a fighter. Everyone in the team still wants to win—me included.”

Looking ahead, Hamilton remains optimistic. “Once we fix a few things on this car, we’ll be back fighting Mercedes and Red Bull. Hopefully sooner than later. We’ll try something different next race. The goal is to get back on that podium.”

Vasseur, for his part, played down the incident.

“I had a chat with Lewis and I get where he’s coming from,” the Ferrari team principal said. “These guys are champions—they want to win. Telling one of them to move over is never easy. But we did it because it’s our team policy. We race for Ferrari first.”

He acknowledged the timing wasn’t perfect. “You can argue it should’ve been half a lap earlier or later. But when you’re on the pit wall trying to judge if the car behind is really faster—or just benefiting from DRS—it’s tough.”

“It’s always easier to analyze it two hours later. They followed the instructions, and that’s what matters. I completely understand Lewis’ frustration. We talked, and things were much calmer afterward.”

Vasseur was quick to shift focus: “Honestly, that’s not the big story today. We finished P7 and P8. I’m more interested in figuring out why we were a minute behind McLaren.”