Lewis Hamilton has apologised to his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc after failing to give eighth place back to the Monegasque on the final lap of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Ferrari’s plan was simple: with 10 laps remaining, Leclerc was ordered to let Hamilton past to chase down Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson. With the Briton on fresher tyres, he was the more likely driver to succeed in moving up the pack. But when this plan didn’t yield an overtake, the drivers were instructed to reverse their positions, putting the points leader Leclerc back in eighth.
This swap never came to fruition, with Ferrari explaining after the race that there was “insufficient time” to complete the move.
Speaking after the race, Hamilton apologised to his team-mate alongside an explanation.
“Yeah, firstly, Charles… Obviously, 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.
“I was still hopeful, maybe. Basically, I did lift on the straight and did actually brake, but I missed it by like 4 tenths, so that was just a misjudgment for myself. So I apologise to Charles. At the end of the day, it’s 8th and 9th, so…”
Asked if there was a discussion ahead of the race for such a scenario, he added: “Because there was never a thought that we would be in that position. So we didn’t talk about it.”
Leclerc, talking to Sky Sports, downplayed the situation.
“Honestly I mean for a P8 or a P9 it’s not going to be a big talking point. I don’t really mind. 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.”
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Team principal Fred Vasseur explained the call to swap the drivers initially, noting power unit issues his stalwart driver was fighting with:
“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 Lawson and Tsunoda or Norris.
“On the top, Charles had the issue with the recovery and we are not at the top on the engine and that, I think, was the best option for us to do this move.”
On Hamilton’s failure to return the place to his team-mate, the Frenchman offered his explanation: “We asked to swap back and it looks like Lewis had a misjudgment on the position of the start and finish line.”
