Lewis Hamilton told Fred Vasseur to ‘calm down’ after radio jabs

Lewis Hamilton has revealed he told Ferrari F1 team principal Fred Vasseur to “calm down” during a post-race chat at the Miami Grand Prix.

Seven-time world champion Hamilton delivered a series of angry jabs at his Ferrari team over team radio amid team orders confusion on his way to another disappointing result in Sunday’s grand prix in Miami.

Hamilton finished eighth behind teammate Charles Leclerc after the pair were twice told to swap positions as they tried - and ultimately failed - to catch Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes for sixth place as the Italian team’s underwhelming start to 2025 continued.

The 40-year-old Briton became increasingly frustrated at Ferrari throughout the race. He was first irritated by the amount of time it took for the team to tell Leclerc, who was on hard tyres, to let him past, before Ferrari’s decision to reverse the positions once more in the closing stages - despite Hamilton being on the faster mediums - irked him.

“Fred came to my room,” Hamilton told media after the race. “I just put my hand on his shoulder and was like, dude, calm down. Don’t be so sensitive.

“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. Look, you’ve got to understand we’re under a huge amount of pressure within the car.

“You’re never going to get the most peaceful messages coming through in the heat of the battle. And yeah, it was fine. We said we’ll take it…”

Hamilton at one point told Ferrari to “have a tea-break while you’re at it” as they mulled over whether to swap positions.

He also sarcastically asked Ferrari if they would like him to let Williams’ Carlos Sainz through after being informed of the gap between him and the driver he replaced.

Asked if the comments were simply ‘heat of the moment’, Hamilton replied: “It wasn’t even anger. It wasn’t like, effing and blinding and anything like that.

“It’s like, make a decision! You’re sitting there on the chair, you’ve got the stuff in front of you, make the decision, quick. That’s how I was, I was me, we’re in a panic, we’re trying to keep the car on the track. We’re computing things fast.

“I mean, it was all PG at least, right? [laughs] Jeez. For sure, I don’t know what you’re going to write, or whether I was disrespectful or whatever, I honestly don’t feel I was.

“I was like, come on guys, I want to win. 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 apologise for being a fighter. I’m not going to apologise for still wanting it. I know everyone in the team does too.

“And I truly believe that when we fix some of the problems that we have with the car, we’ll be back in the fight with the Mercedes, with the Red Bulls. It just can’t come quick enough.

“We’ll try something different in the next race. We’ll keep working on the processes. I look forward to a time when maybe I can fight for a podium, that would be nice.”

Fred Vasseur downplays Lewis Hamilton discussion

Speaking to media including Crash.net, Vasseur was keen to downplay the situation, insisting he could “perfectly understand” Hamilton’s frustration.

“I had a discussion with Lewis and I can perfectly understand the frustration,” he explained. “They are champions, they want to win races. We are asking them to let the team go. It's not easy. It's never easy. And I didn't see another team to do it today.

“That's why we took the responsibility to do it. Because it's the policy to the team. We are racing for Ferrari first and honestly I think as a team we did a good job.

“Again, you can argue that it would have been better to do it half a lap before or half a lap later. But when you are in the pit wall and you have to understand if the car behind is faster than the car in front, just for DRS or not, it's not an easy call.

“It's always much easier to do it two hours later. We asked them to do it, they did it. Now the frustration when you are in the car, I can perfectly understand this. And we had a discussion and it was much more relaxed.”

“It's not the story of the day. We did 6-7, instead of 7-6 or 6-7 or 7-6. I would be much more keen to speak about why we finished one minute behind McLaren.”