Leclerc also criticised Ferrari over “stupid” strategy on radio · F1 · RaceFans

Lewis Hamilton’s criticism of his team’s strategy may have caused red faces at Ferrari, but his team mate was no happier with their tactics.

Charles Leclerc told Ferrari they risked his position to Carlos Sainz Jnr behind after he was told to let Hamilton by.

Ferrari ordered Leclerc to let Hamilton through after the pair passed Sainz and were running seventh and eighth. Hamilton, running the softer medium tyre compound while Leclerc was on hards, was eager to use his tyre advantage to attack Andrea Kimi Antonelli ahead.

However Ferrari were wary of the lingering threat from Sainz behind. They waited until seven laps after their drivers had passed Sainz (including one lap affected by a Virtual Safety Car period) before ordering them to swap places.

Hamilton criticised his team, in messages replayed on the world television broadcast, for what he considered a slow decision. “Have a tea break while you’re at it, come on,” he snapped.

However Leclerc was unimpressed to find himself close to Sainz after letting Hamilton by. His race engineer Bryan Bozzi told him “We’ll swap the cars in turn 17 and give Hamilton a chance on medium, and if he doesn’t pass we’ll let him back.”

“Careful with Carlos behind,” Bozzi added. After dropping behind Hamilton, Leclerc replied: “Oh, that’s stupid. I didn’t know Carlos was that close.”

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Sainz was not immediately within DRS range of Leclerc, as Bozzi pointed out, but drew within a second as the Ferrari driver began to struggle in his team mate’s slipstream. “I need Lewis to go faster,” he told Bozzi, “I’ve just got in dirty air now.”

“Considering the wake, these are good laps,” Bozzi replied shortly afterwards.

Leclerc continued to warn his team he was losing time because he’d fallen behind Hamilton. “I’m overheating tyres,” he said. “I’m saying that because that’s why I’m losing [time] in [turn] seven-eight, the tyres are warm.”

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After giving Hamilton 13 laps to close on Antonelli, Ferrari decided to swap their cars back. They originally told Leclerc, “we will swap the cars in turn 11 now,” but did not give a corresponding message to Hamilton, so the cars remained in the same order.

“So Lewis was not informed,” Bozzi told Leclerc as he accelerated out of turn 16, “he’s been informed now we will swap the cars at turn 17.” Again the cars remained in the same order.

This time Ferrari had given an instruction to Hamilton, but he did not do as told immediately. “We’re going to swap the cars in 17,” said his race engineer Ricardo Adami. “So you don’t think I’m going to catch up or what?” Hamilton answered. “Yes,” Adami replied.

“Go for a swap in 11, please,” said Adami halfway around the next lap. Hamilton, who had halved his deficit to Antonelli to 2.7 seconds, complied.

But with only five laps remaining, Leclerc told the team there was no longer any point in switching back. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said. “Now we are seeing Antonelli, let’s try to get him and then otherwise we are going to lose more time than anything. Then we discuss after the race.”

Leclerc, who experienced similar confusion over Ferrari’s team orders in Las Vegas last year, closed to within one-and-a-half seconds of Antonelli by the flag, but ran out of time to attack the Mercedes.

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Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur defended their management of the race afterwards. “On the strategy front, our calls were right,” he said.

“We pitted both our drivers under the Virtual Safety Car and this allowed Lewis to run behind Charles at the restart. Then we swapped the cars as soon as we were sure we were not putting Charles at risk from the cars behind, as Lewis was on medium tyres and we wanted to try and catch Kimi Antonelli. It didn’t work so we reversed the call at the end as per our standard procedure.”

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