Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur branded the Formula 1 broadcast of select radio messages “a joke” as a false narrative of Lewis Hamilton was depicted.
On Lap 18 of the Chinese Grand Prix, Hamilton radioed into Race Engineer Riccardo Adami to say “I think I’m going to let Charles go because I’m struggling.”
True enough, Hamilton had been hindering his team-mate Charles Leclerc’s progress, who had pace to unlock from fifth position.
However, F1, the custodian of broadcasting radio messages to the international broadcast, omitted this message from the live coverage.
Instead, F1 chose to relay Hamilton’s messages to deny Adami’s request to let Leclerc through at Turn 14 on Lap 18 and 19, but this was due to the Briton wanting to control the swap in a safe and risk-free manner.
Hamilton eventually made room for Leclerc to sweep through at Turn 1 on Lap 21 with F1 deciding to close out the radio saga by broadcasting Leclerc’s following exchange with Race Engineer Bryan Bozzi.
“This is a shame, the pace is there,” uttered the Monegasque.
“Well done, sorry about that,” came Bozzi’s reply.
Leclerc was able to pull away from Hamilton, who eventually pivoted to a two-stop strategy to finish sixth on the road behind Max Verstappen, who also caught and passed the second Ferrari to take fourth.
Those results were of little consequence, with both Ferraris later getting disqualified.
FOM created ‘a mess’ – Vasseur
Before the disqualification, Vasseur took umbrage with F1’s handling of the radio communication.
“I think this is a joke from FOM because the first call came from Lewis,” Vasseur said (via ESPN).
“Lewis asked us to swap, but to create the mess around the situation they broadcast only the second part of the question. We will discuss with them.
“You can’t imagine the number of questions I had about this when I came from the garage to here.
“It’s all about the same thing: ‘Is it a mess?’ I said no, it’s Lewis who asked to swap.
“I’m not even sure you would even have these situations 10 times at other teams in a season, and honestly from the pit wall we really appreciated the call from Lewis saying, ‘guys, I’m losing the pace, I’m keen to swap’.
“It took us one lap to ask him to swap with Charles and then the pace was back. He said ‘oh let’s stay like this for a little bit’ and we said ‘no, if you up the pace we swap’.”
The broadcast of radio messages from Ferrari follows a similar narrative that F1 helped depict in the Australian season opener.
There, F1 chose to broadcast Adami and Hamilton’s back-and-forth as the Ferrari driver got to grips with his SF-25 in the wet.
The narrative being depicted was one of miscommunication, as F1 repeatedly broadcast Hamilton’s requests for less information over team radio, something he pointed out on arrival in Shanghai was done far more politely than some of his rivals.
Vasseur has seen no such issue in his relationship and instead feels questioning regarding radio exchanges should be targeted elsewhere.
“As a team the collaboration between the two guys is mega and I can’t complain a single second about something.
“You have to ask the question to [F1 CEO] Stefano [Domenicali] and not me because I’m not in charge of the broadcast.”
READ MORE – Lewis Hamilton: Max Verstappen radio ‘far worse’ than Ferrari exchanges
