Lewis Hamilton apologises to Charles Leclerc for botched Ferrari swap

Lewis Hamilton has apologised to Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc after failing to give eighth place back on the final lap of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

With the Ferrari drivers running on different strategies that saw Leclerc on hard tyres and Hamilton on fresher mediums, the Monegasque allowed his teammate through in the closing stages of Sunday’s race in Baku to attack a group of cars ahead.

Hamilton caught the train led by Liam Lawson’s Racing Bulls but was unable to move forward, with the Ferrari pair coming home P8 and P9 in another underwhelming showing from the Italian team.

In a series of radio messages that were not broadcast at the time, it has emerged that the swap was made on the understanding that Hamilton would hand the position back to Leclerc if he could not make progress.

Hamilton was instructed to let Leclerc past on the final lap but the seven-time world champion failed to do so, despite slowing down significantly on the main straight as he crossed the line just 0.464 seconds ahead.

The 40-year-old Briton admitted he misjudged his attempt to give the place back to Leclerc, with Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar just behind the Ferraris.

“I was quicker, but Charles was gracious to let me by. At the end, I got the message really late on, and I was zoned in on the car in front of me, even though there was 0.001% chance of passing,” Hamilton explained.

"I was still hopeful, maybe. Basically, I did lift on the straight and did actually brake, but I missed it by like four-tenths, so that was just a misjudgment for myself. So I apologise to Charles. At the end of the day, it's eighth and ninth.”

Leclerc suggests Ferrari’s rules weren’t respected

While Leclerc ultimately downplayed the situation, he did question whether Hamilton had respected Ferrari’s rules.

"Honestly I mean for a P8 or a P9 it's not going to be a big talking point. I don't really mind,” Leclerc told Sky Sports F1.

“Obviously these are things that we agree between us and the general rules of how we want to work whenever there's a swap. It didn't happen and that's OK.

"I mean it's not like I would have been a lot happier being P8 so I don't mind.”

Leclerc later added: "I mean, there are rules that we know we've got to work with. And today maybe those rules were not respected.

"But, again, P8-P9, P9-P8, that's more going forward obviously, if we are fighting for sexier positions, which I hope it would be the case, then I hope that we will work in a different way.”

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur said: "I think the situation was clear for us, that Lewis had a tyre advantage. And we asked Charles to let him go to try to overtake Tsunoda and Lawson.

"Charles had an issue with the [energy] recovery and we were not at the top with the engine. I think that was the best option for us to do this move."