Why Hamilton won’t apologise for being a fighter

Lewis Hamilton’s radio frustration with his Ferrari Formula 1 team inevitably became the big story of the Miami GP.

Afterwards the former World Champion was keen to play down his comments – while stressing that they showed that he still has that desire to win.

The situation arose because he started on the hard tyres and switched to mediums. Finding that the car came alive and suited him better he came up behind Charles Leclerc, who had done the opposite strategy.

The heated discussion followed as Lewis felt that he had the pace with which to chase the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli up ahead, and he thus wanted to get cleanly past Leclerc and make best use of his tyres.

His frustration came as it took a couple of laps for the decision to be made to let him through.

When he failed to make much progress – perhaps because his tyres had lost some of the initial advantage that he might have had – the positions were reversed.

In these cases that tension is usually still in the air after the flag when drivers meet the media.

Crucially in this instance Lewis had met with team boss Fred Vasseur before the came to face the media, and they’d had a chance to put their points across.

Subsequently rather than clam up Lewis was keen to explain his point of view. He was almost sheepish in the way he downplayed his comments, perhaps aware that the stable door was being closed too late to stop the storm that they had already created.

“I generally enjoyed the race,” he said when I asked him about his afternoon. “I think this weekend, whilst we were not as quick as we want to be, I think I feel like I had a better weekend in general.

“The result might not show necessarily today, but I was 12th, so very hard to overtake here. Cars were obviously so close.

“I got onto the medium tyre, and I felt the car really come alive. And I felt super optimistic in that moment, and I all I could see is the [Mercedes] up ahead, and I was thinking, maybe we can get up to sixth or something.

“But we lost a lot of time in those laps, and I was clearly quicker in that moment. And I didn’t think the decision came quick enough, and then for sure in that time, you’re like, ‘Come on!’

“That’s really kind of it. I have no problems with the team, or with Charles. I think we could do it better, but the car is where we really need to improve. We’re ultimately battling for seventh and eighth.”

The frustration came really because Hamilton initially felt so good on the medium tyre, and couldn’t use the pace he felt he had when behind Leclerc.

“I lost quite a bit of the tyres in that, which is okay,” he said. “We’re battling for position at the end of the day, but it would have been great if we could have maybe done what Valtteri and I did back in the past, years ago, or just move, see if I can catch him.

“If I can’t, then move back. But ultimately, it didn’t work out. Whether or not we could have overtaken a Mercedes, and at the end of the day, we were not quick enough.

“That’s probably where the frustration came from. We will keep our heads up. We’ll keep pushing.”

As noted Hamilton met Vasseur before he talked to the media, and both men had a chance to explain their positions.

It’s clear that, while understanding the frustration of any racing driver in such a situation, the team boss wasn’t happy with the tone of some of the radio traffic. In effect it was aimed at him, given that ultimately it was his call to make.

“Fred came to my room,” said Hamilton. “I just put my hand on his shoulder, like, dude, calm down! It’s not good to be so sensitive. I could have said way worse things on the radio. You hear some of the things other people have said in the past!

“Some of it was sarcasm. You’ve got to understand, we’re under a huge amount of pressure within the cars. You’re never going to get the most peaceful messages come through in the heat of battle.”

He added: “It was ‘Make a decision. Let’s go.’ It was kind of like, ‘We’ll get back to you.’ I definitely said that to Shov or Bono once before.”

Hamilton also made the point that at least he didn’t resort to swearing.

“It wasn’t even anger,” he said. “It wasn’t even effing and blinding or anything like that. It was just like, come on make a decision, you’re sitting there on the chair, you’ve the stuff in front of you, make the decision quick.

“That’s how I was, whereas me, I’m like, we’re in a panic. We’re trying to keep the car on the track. The computer thinks fast.

“It was all PG at least, right? I don’t know what you’re going to write, whether I was disrespectful or whatever. I honestly, I don’t feel I was. I was just like, come on guys. I want to win.”

And that’s the bottom line – Hamilton is the ultimate racer, and he simply wanted to get on with it.

“Still got that fire in my belly,” he said. “I could feel a little bit of it like really coming up there. And I’m not going to apologise for being a fighter.

“I’m not going to apologise for still wanting it. I know everyone in the team does too, and I truly believe that when we fix some of the problems that we have with the car, we’ll be back in the fight with the Mercedes, with the Bulls, and it just can’t come quick enough.

“We’ll try something different in the next race. We’ll keep working on our processes. Look forward to the time where maybe I can fight for a podium. That’ll be nice.”

The fact that Hamilton felt good on the medium tyre in the latter part of the race was another sign of light at the end of the tunnel, following a similarly strong middle stint in the Bahrain GP.

The trick is to find the sweet spot, and get that feeling on a regular basis.

“I had a good day in general. Eighth doesn’t really look like that. I feel optimistic for the future. I think this car really does have performance.

“But something is holding us back at the moment, and we’ve lost performance since China. And it’s there. It’s just we can’t use it until we get a fix for that. This is where we are.

“In the meantime, we can work on all the other stuff, the processes. But as I said, I came from the sim last week, I felt like I generally had a better weekend to get the third yesterday was positive, had a better qualifying, I only missed out by half a tenth.

“Still for us, we’re battling with the Williams here, so we’re clearly not as quick as we ought to be. Williams did a great job this weekend.”