Lewis Hamilton’s telling one-word reply amid Christian Horner Ferrari links
Lewis Hamilton offers a blunt response to the noise surrounding Ferrari, Fred Vasseur and Christian Horner.
Lewis Hamilton has backed Fred Vasseur to continue to lead Ferrari after Christian Horner threw his hat into the ring to became the team’s next Formula 1 team principal.
Former Red Bull team principal Horner has admitted that Ferrari is the only F1 job that would tempt him back onto the pit wall without an ownership stake, describing leading the famous Maranello outfit as “the dream” role.
Horner is actively pursuing an F1 comeback following his Red Bull sacking last year and has been continually linked with the Ferrari job. Speculation has ramped up after he publicly declared his interest in the position for the first time.
Asked by Sky Sports F1 after the Azerbaijan Grand Prix about the noise surrounding Ferrari and if he is confident the team is still on a good path with Vasseur in charge, Hamilton simply replied: “Yes.”
When pressed if there is “good unity” within the team, Hamilton nodded and said “yep”.
Asked what the team can do over the remaining races, Hamilton looked from side to side before saying: “keep trying.”
It was another disappointing race for Ferrari in Baku as Charles Leclerc dropped from second to fourth, while Hamilton could only finish where he started in sixth on a difficult afternoon.
“It was a pretty bad race from my perspective, I didn’t really go anywhere,” the seven-time world champion said.
“I couldn’t keep up with the guys ahead and I was struggling to keep the guys behind. Just lacking pace today.
“Generally through the whole weekend, I just couldn’t get the tyres to work. I weaved and weaved and weaved and the tyres just wouldn’t switch on.
“At the end of the first stint, the tyres all of a sudden started to switch on and start working and I started to do the same time as like everyone ahead.
“Then we switched to the next tyre and it wouldn’t switch on the whole last stint of the race so I was just sliding around.”
The result leaves Hamilton third in the championship, 103 points behind Mercedes’ Andrea Kimi Antonelli, and 37 adrift of George Russell, who won Saturday’s race.
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