Former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher believes that Lewis Hamilton should have apologised to Ferrari for his comments on the radio at the Miami Grand Prix, rather than claim that he meant them sarcastically. The seven-time world champion grew frustrated with his Ferrari engineers after requesting that the team swap positions, giving him clean air ahead of team-mate Charles Leclerc.
Hamilton was overheating his medium compound tyres behind the rear wing of the No.16 car, and wanted to hunt down Kimi Antonelli for P6 ahead. Eventually, Ferrari granted this request, but not before a couple of laps of deliberation. As Hamilton’s frustrations boiled over, he made a couple of snappy comments on the radio to race engineer Riccardo Adami.
When he was eventually told that Ferrari would swap the cars, he replied: “Ah, have a tea break while you’re at it! Come on!” Later, after returning the position to Leclerc, he was told that Carlos Sainz was applying pressure behind him. “You want me to let him pass as well?’” the Brit fired back.
Afterwards, Hamilton explained these comments away as good-willed sarcasm. “Fred [Vasseur] came to my room,” he said. “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…”
However, this explanation wasn’t enough to satisfy former Williams and Toyota driver Schumacher. Speaking on the Backstage Boxengasse podcast, he stated: “’Mi, mi, mi’ Hamilton, that was somehow off the mark. If you really want to get past, that’s one thing; he was faster at the time. But then give it back without a fight.
“And afterwards, I don’t pretend that I meant it sarcastically. Instead, I just say that I’m sorry. That shouldn’t really happen with his experience and his age. He could have acted a bit more cleverly. I think that would have suited him better.”
Schumacher then added: “Of course, the relationship is tarnished by such actions. That will stick, and he has to know that himself. There is now a need for clarification, and it will definitely be discussed – especially internally, how to deal with it in the future.”
