Key thing Hamilton has done at Ferrari that Schumacher avoided noted

In publicly criticising Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton has done something Michael Schumacher avoided during his time with F1’s most famous team, it has been claimed.

Seven-time world champion Hamilton’s disappointing start to life at Ferrari continued as he finished a low-key eighth at the Miami Grand Prix, one place behind teammate Charles Leclerc.

Hamilton scolded Ferrari through a series of angsty radio messages as he became increasingly frustrating with his team’s hesitation after asking to be let past Leclerc, who was on a different tyre compound, in order to chase down Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes a few seconds up the road.

Ferrari eventually told Leclerc to let Hamilton past, by which point the 40-year-old Briton’s tyres were already past their best, resulting in the duo reversing positions following another long exchange between the cockpit and the pit wall.

Hamilton criticised Ferrari for “not good teamwork” and sarcastically suggested that the team should “have a tea break” while they continued to deliberate their strategy options.

“There’s a long history, I think back to Alain Prost. I don’t remember Michael Schumacher ever criticising Ferrari,” Ted Kravitz told the Sky Sports F1 show when analysing Hamilton’s sassy radio comments.

“But Sebastian Vettel certainly did, Kimi Raikkonen did – it’s just that people didn’t think he was serious but he was deadly serious.

“There’s a long history of Ferrari drivers criticising Ferrari and it not working out well for them.”

Kravitz proceeded to list several theories for why Hamilton was happy to publicly air his frustrations.

“I think there are three scenarios that make Lewis Hamilton more happy to be a bit more sarcastic and sassy on the radio,” he continued.

"It's the first time that Lewis was on the end, potentially the wrong end, of the famous Ferrari strategy, 'we'll get back to you', that has amused us and infuriated the likes of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc before.

"The first scenario is that he feels more secure and more happy in the team, and everything is going well, and he's confident enough to say those things without feeling like there's going to be any comeback on him.

"Scenario two is that maybe he's not happy with what's going on and wants to help reform the team. He wants to help Ravin Jain, the head of strategy, to be a bit sharper and interact with his engineer.

"And the third scenario, is that maybe Lewis doesn't care anymore, isn't happy, and is just happy to criticise them. I don't think that's the case but you could put it forward as a reason."

The comment which caught Martin Brundle’s attention

Martin Brundle felt Hamilton’s use of the phrase “you guys” was particularly telling.

“Two words that caught my attention in Lewis’s transmission - you guys - because he’s a massive team player. That was quite a punchy thing to say, as in, it’s not us, it’s you,” Brundle said.

Kravitz suggested this comment was directed at Ferrari’s strategy department, rather than his race engineer Riccardo Adami.

"I think that's because the strategy department is so compartmentalised at Ferrari from the race engineers,” Kravitz explained.

"You've got Ravin Jain, you've got his strategy department, and then [Leclerc's engineer] Brian Bozzi and Riccardo Adami, have to default. They don't have any autonomy on strategy at all, whereas I think the likes of McLaren's Will Joseph and Tom Stallard, they're always discussing it, they're much more integrated.

"And why on earth, if they knew that there was a possibility of Lewis starting on the hards and then going to the mediums, they should have seen this in a meeting on Sunday morning and prepared for it.

"I think it's more separated. I think that's why he said, 'you guys'. He's saying: 'You strategy guys, in your little bunker there, where it takes 10 minutes for anything to get through to you, hurry up, get on it!'"

Brundle went on to warn Ferrari not to behave like a football team.

"Of course they're going to be super unhappy at Ferrari. They expect to be contenders for the championship, especially with a line-up of Leclerc and Hamilton,” he added.

"What they mustn't do is behave like a football team and fire the manager, fire everybody, and change for the sake of change. That won't improve anything at all. We have seen teams make that mistake.

"They were the fifth-fastest team, and that's really a big issue. They've got to understand that. If they could change the car, they would, if they knew what to do with it. There will be some heavy conversations at Ferrari, there has to be."