From the moment Lewis Hamilton first settled into a Ferrari cockpit, it was inevitable that every radio message, strategic call, and race result from the number 44 car would be intensely scrutinized. This level of attention is unavoidable when Formula 1`s most decorated driver joins the sport`s most celebrated team.
During his initial race in red in Australia, seemingly simple communications regarding a `K1` steering wheel setting garnered significant attention, despite Hamilton politely acknowledging his new race engineer Riccardo Adami. A week later at the second race in China, the F1 broadcast failed to air a crucial message where Hamilton offered to concede his position to teammate Charles Leclerc. This omission meant vital context was missing from the subsequent pit-to-car radio, making it appear as though the seven-time world champion was disagreeing with the team`s instruction to swap places.
Then, in Miami, amidst the hot South Florida conditions that coincided with one of Ferrari`s less competitive performances of 2025, a series of radio exchanges escalated into a team orders controversy after the checkered flag fell on the Grand Prix.
What happened?
Putting aside the heated radio exchanges, Ferrari`s fundamental problem in Miami was a deficit in performance. Radio messages, questionable strategic decisions, and post-race frustrations all originated from the lack of competitive lap times throughout the weekend. The final race standings offer the clearest picture of the challenging weekend: Leclerc finished seventh, a significant 57 seconds behind race winner Oscar Piastri, while Hamilton came in eighth.
Instead of competing with Mercedes and Max Verstappen`s Red Bull for the final podium spot behind the dominant McLarens, Ferrari found themselves struggling to fend off Carlos Sainz in the slower Williams car, while Alex Albon in the other Williams finished nine seconds ahead of Leclerc in fifth. For a team that was only 14 points behind last year`s constructors` champions, McLaren, this was yet another harsh reality check for the Italian squad in 2025.
The discrepancy between Ferrari`s preseason expectations and their actual performance on track only heightened tensions when Leclerc and Hamilton found themselves battling on the same piece of asphalt in the latter half of the race. Employing different strategies based on their starting positions (Leclerc started eighth on medium tires, Hamilton 12th on hards), the paths of the two Ferraris began to converge around lap 32 and were running closely together by lap 38.
Hamilton had closed the gap to Leclerc thanks to a timely pit stop from hard to medium tires during a Virtual Safety Car period, while Leclerc had made his switch from mediums to hards under normal racing conditions a few laps later. Running in tandem on lap 34, they executed a coordinated overtake on Sainz where Leclerc lunged past the Williams at Turn 1, effectively opening the door for Hamilton to slip by in the same corner.
Hamilton, on a softer tire compound with greater immediate performance potential, was the faster of the two Ferraris at that point, but was concerned about damaging his tires by running in his teammate`s aerodynamic wake. Andrea Kimi Antonelli in sixth place was five seconds ahead, and Hamilton felt he had a chance of catching the Mercedes driver if he could just get past Leclerc.
“I`m just burning up my tires behind him,” Hamilton said over team radio on lap 36. “You want me to just sit here the whole race?”
Adami responded: “We`ll come back to you.”
This type of exchange has been common on Ferrari team radio in recent years. The driver, isolated in their cockpit with events unfolding at high speed, desires an immediate decision, only for the pit wall to effectively put them on hold.
With Sainz still only 1.5 seconds behind, Ferrari`s strategists were worried that a swap could slow both cars and undo the good work of the double overtake on lap 34.
Adami eventually returned the call, saying: “We want to keep the DRS to Charles, go ahead like this. Carlos behind 1.5.”
As Hamilton`s pace advantage over his teammate became unmistakably clear, Ferrari finally agreed to a swap on lap 38, but by that point Hamilton seemed to be growing impatient.
“This is not good teamwork, that`s all I`m going to say,” he commented. “In China, I got out the way…”
Adami interrupted with: “We swap the cars.”
To which Hamilton quipped: “Have a tea break while you`re at it, come on!”
Over the next 12 laps, Hamilton managed to cut the gap to Antonelli in half, bringing it down to 2.5 seconds. However, with every passing lap, his tire advantage over Leclerc was diminishing, and by lap 44 the two Ferraris were once again split by just a second. Until the positions were swapped back on lap 53 of 57, Leclerc experienced similar frustrations to Hamilton.
“I think we should have discussed a little bit more before doing the swap, because you`re trying to go to the end with those tires,” Leclerc said after the race. “I`m trying to do a good job with my tires, and then everything is tricky.
“I did not expect Carlos to be so close [behind]. All of this made the situation a bit trickier, but I think there`s plenty for us to look at. As I said, we need to make a step and we need to be robust enough that whenever we find ourselves in those situations, we handle them better.”
Hamilton stated that the laps stuck behind Leclerc had taken some life out of his tires but was still uncertain if he would have had the pace to catch Antonelli even if the initial swap had happened sooner.
“I lost quite a bit of the tires in that, which is OK,” he commented. “We were battling for position at the end of the day, but it would have been great if we could have maybe done what Valtteri [Bottas, Hamilton`s former teammate at Mercedes] and I did in Budapest years ago where we move, see if I can catch him, if I can`t, move back. But ultimately, it didn`t play out as hoped.
“Whether or not we could have overtaken the Mercedes, at the end of the day, we were not quick enough. And that`s probably where the frustration came from.”
Regarding the tone of his messages to Adami during the race, Hamilton added: “It wasn`t even anger. It wasn`t like cursing and swearing or anything like that. It`s like, `Make a decision!` You`re sitting there on the chair, you`ve got the information in front of you, make the decision, fast. That`s how I was, I was being me, we`re in a panic, we`re trying to keep the car on the track. We`re processing things quickly.”
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`ve still got my fire in my belly. I could feel a bit of it really coming up there. I`m not going to apologize for being a fighter. I`m not going to apologize for still wanting it.
“I didn`t think the decision came quick enough. And for sure, in that moment, you`re like, `Come on!` But that`s really kind of it. I have no problems with the team or with Charles. I think we could do better, but the car is not where we really need to be. At the end of the day, we`re competing for seventh and eighth place.”
How did Ferrari explain the decision?
Following the race, team principal Frédéric Vasseur met with Hamilton in Ferrari`s hospitality to discuss the events before his driver spoke to the media. The Frenchman, who has a long-standing close relationship with Hamilton spanning more than two decades, stated that the purpose of the chat was to explain the pit wall`s reasoning, rather than being a mere public relations exercise.
“My concern is not that he has to speak with TV, it`s that we need to be clear between us, meaning that in this situation, he has to understand what my feeling was on the pit wall,” Vasseur said. “He can trust me, I can trust him, and the same with Charles. And when I have to take a decision, I`m making a decision that is best for Ferrari.”
Hamilton also gave an account of the meeting on Sunday evening.
“Fred came to my room. I just put my hand on his shoulder and said, `Dude, calm down. Don`t be so sensitive,` ” he recalled. “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, but look, you`ve got to understand we`re under immense pressure within the car. You`re never going to get calm messages coming through in the heat of the battle.”
Vasseur explained that the delay in enacting the first swap between the drivers was because the team wanted to verify if Hamilton had a genuine performance advantage due to his softer tires or was simply gaining from being within DRS range of Leclerc. Hamilton was within a second of Leclerc (and thus in DRS range) from lap 35 through to lap 38 when the swap was made, although Vasseur claims only about a lap and a half was lost in making the decision.
“To get straight to the point: it didn`t take so long,” he said. “It was about a lap and a half or something like this. And when we have two cars with different strategies, the first thing for me is to understand if [Hamilton`s car] is faster when you are behind due to the DRS or not. It took us one lap.”
He added: “The main story of the day isn`t whether we finished 6th and 7th, or 7th and 6th. I would be much more interested in discussing why we finished a minute behind McLaren.”
Can Ferrari turn the tide?
In the world of sport, gaining access to real-time conversations of participants, like those heard on Ferrari`s team radio, is uncommon. Inevitably, things are said in the heat of competition that can lose some context when transcribed. It`s also important to note that Hamilton`s frustrations were rooted in the team`s strategic decisions and therefore were not directed at Adami personally, who would not have had the final say over the swap despite relaying the messages.
Nevertheless, Ferrari`s decision-making process appeared unclear at a critical moment of the race, and both drivers were perfectly justified in expressing frustration and making their case.
“There are no hard feelings with Lewis, not at all,” Leclerc stated. “I understand as well that Lewis is trying a different approach, so I appreciate that. I would have done the same thing if I was him and trying to be a bit more aggressive with the medium tires.
“We need to separate the two things. Yes, we need to resolve these strategic issues that probably cost us one position, but the other seven or six positions are down to the car, and we need to make it better.”
On this point, Ferrari is united: the car simply isn`t fast enough to challenge at the front.
An upgrade package is anticipated to arrive in time for the upcoming triple header of Imola, Monaco, and Spain. On Sunday, Hamilton suggested a solution to the problems he has faced since his car was disqualified from the Chinese Grand Prix for running too low to the ground.
“Something is holding us back at the moment,” he said. “We`ve lost performance since China — and it`s there, we just can`t utilize it. Until we find a fix for that, then this is our current position.
“Still, for us, we`re competing with Williams here, so we`re clearly not as fast as we want to be. I sincerely believe that once we fix some of the problems that we have with the car, we`ll be back in contention with the Mercedes, with the Red Bulls.
“It just cannot arrive soon enough.”
Dominic Ashworth