Lewis Hamilton’s first season with Ferrari has been marked by unexpected challenges and mounting frustrations, culminating in a heated radio exchange that was controversially edited by the Formula One Management (FOM) during the Miami Grand Prix. The seven-time world champion, who joined Ferrari after a long and successful stretch at Mercedes, found himself at odds with his race engineer Riccardo Adami amidst strategic confusion that ultimately compromised his race performance.
After switching teams, expectations were high that Hamilton would immediately become a title contender with Ferrari. However, the reality on track has been harsher; Ferrari’s SF-25 struggles to keep pace with Hamilton’s former team. Mercedes, which improved significantly since finishing fourth in last year’s Constructors’ Championship, currently boast a faster car than Ferrari, which lags behind as the fourth-quickest contender. This gap has tested Hamilton’s patience as he adapts to the SF-25’s unique characteristics.
The tension between Hamilton and his new race engineer escalated sharply during the Miami GP, where their radio communications revealed deep frustration from the driver. Hamilton, running on fresher medium tires behind his teammate Charles Leclerc, sought a driver swap to maximize their overall race strategy. Leclerc, managing harder, slower tires, was holding up Hamilton, preventing him from challenging Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli ahead of them. Despite Hamilton’s clear requests, including referencing a similar switch he initiated during the Chinese GP, Ferrari’s pit wall delayed the order, allowing valuable time and tire performance to slip away.
The delay infuriated Hamilton, who openly criticized Adami over the radio. When the team finally permitted him to pass Leclerc, Hamilton expressed his annoyance, telling the engineer to
“take another cup of tea, while you think about it,”
reflecting his disappointment in the pit wall’s indecisiveness. Further compounding the tension, when Adami instructed Hamilton to give the position back to Leclerc, citing pressure from Carlos Sainz behind, Hamilton’s sarcasm erupted, asking,
“You want me to let him pass as well?”
This sharp retort highlighted the driver’s frustration with the team’s inconsistent strategy calls.
The controversy deepened when Dutch F1 journalist Olav Mol revealed that FOM had withheld a significant part of the radio exchange from the official broadcast. Mol criticized the management for hiding key moments, declaring,
“I also heard another on-board radio, which was not broadcast. I think this of the FOM is bad. If you broadcast three parts here, you also have to broadcast the fourth part.”
Mol shared that Hamilton had told Adami, in an unbroadcast segment,
“Jesus man, don’t talk to me,”
pointing to the intense back-and-forth as both men spoke over each other during the tense exchange.
In response to public scrutiny, Lewis Hamilton defended his conduct, asserting his honesty and dismissing claims of disrespect.
“I don’t know what you’re going to write, or whether I was disrespectful or whatever, I honestly don’t feel I was,”
he told Planet F1, emphasizing that his frustrations stemmed from genuine concerns over the team’s handling of the race.
This incident sheds light on Ferrari’s ongoing strategic struggles. Despite the arrival of team principal Fred Vasseur in 2023, the Scuderia continues to suffer from pit wall indecision and repeated errors, issues that have plagued the team for nearly five years. Hamilton’s radio message controversy not only exposes cracks within the team dynamics but also raises urgent questions about Ferrari’s ability to compete effectively against faster and more cohesive rivals.
Looking ahead, the fallout from Miami may force Ferrari to re-evaluate internal communication and race strategy management if they hope to maximize the potential of drivers like Lewis Hamilton. The public tension revealed by the radio messages underscores the pressure mounting on both the driver and his engineers, as Ferrari seeks to break its recent pattern of underperformance and restore its status as a championship contender.
