Frederic Vasseur has accused Formula 1’s selective broadcasting decisions of creating a false narrative around Lewis Hamilton at the Chinese Grand Prix. The Ferrari chief has held talks with the sport’s bosses over the situation which he labelled “a joke”.
Vasseur is angry about how a conversation between Hamilton and his race engineer Riccardo Adami during the Shanghai race was portrayed to viewers. It was pertinent to Ferrari’s tactics during the race as it was around the time the instruction came for Hamilton to allow team-mate Charles Leclerc to pass him.
That order was broadcast over the world feed, which is controlled by Formula 1. It also showed Hamilton refusing to follow one instruction to swap positions at a certain corner as he explained that he wanted to clear the slower cars ahead first.
But one message that was not played was the first, which showed that Hamilton had suggested they swap positions in the first place. “I think I’m going to let Charles go because I’m struggling,” he said.
The strategy call proved meaningless in the end as, after the race, both cars were disqualified anyway over separate technical infringements. But still Vasseur is angry that the choice made by F1 to not broadcast Hamilton’s initial message suggested that his driver had been against the order.
“I think this is a joke from FOM because the first call came from Lewis,” he fumed. “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.” Mirror Sport understands that conversation has now been had an an F1 spokesperson said: “There was absolutely no intention of presenting a misleading narrative regarding the Ferrari team radio. Due to other situations developing during the race the message from Lewis was not played but this was not intentional.”
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Vasseur went on to suggest the omission of Hamilton’s initial message had also led to a barrage of questions on the subject from reporters after the race, adding: “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’.”
Regarding Hamilton’s relationship with new race engineers Adami, which has been under a public microscope, Vasseur said: “As a team the collaboration between the two guys is mega and I can’t complain a single second about something. I understand the question, but you have to ask the question to Stefano [Domenicali, F1 CEO] and not me because I’m not in charge of the broadcast.”
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