Why Lewis Hamilton is calling out Ferrari's F1 team

Ferrari's got to change things after a bruising Italian Grand Prix. That was Lewis Hamilton's message. John, you heard him after the race. He was pretty upset. Yeah, this has been bubbling away for a little bit. There was a hint of, kind of element of annoyance from Lewis yesterday about how Ferrari had executed qualifying. But it came to a head in the Italian Grand Prix, a Turn 1, Turn 2 incident with Charles Leclerc. Leclerc pushed me off on the team radio, which has left him upset. More operational weaknesses on the team in strategy. They got the strategy wrong, which has also upset him. And then the question of teamwork, working together, how you go forward for here. It's a list of things that Lewis thinks this team needs to address. And actually, more than that, should have addressed weeks ago because it's too late to do anything now. Yeah, major damage has been done to both championships. Let's start off with that teamwork element because there was so much of the topic of conversation yesterday and it all seemed to go wrong from the very start. Leclerc said, you know, we went too far. You put those exact words to Lewis in terms of their battling. What did he say to that? Yeah, so they'd gone into Turn 1 quite close together. Lewis had gone down the inside, through the apex, come out and Leclerc had run wide and pushed Lewis off. Lewis had come on the team radio and said it pushed me off. Then Charles in the pen has said, you know, we went too far. Lewis into Turn 1. Then what I did at Turn 2, not quite tight enough. But I said to Lewis, this is Charles' assessment, we went too far in terms of the pair of them. He went, no, no, no. I was ahead by Turn 2. By the apex, I was ahead. So there was no we in it. But I think what is critical is this falls under the umbrella of the two of them not working together. I think there is a growing frustration from Lewis that at a time when they were holding on to the championship, very, very slim chance, the team needs to work together. This was a golden opportunity to get points. Kimite Antonelli was starting 19th. This is a chance to close that gap. They not only saw Antonelli come through and win, a fantastic win for Kimi Antonelli, but they messed each other up. Lewis fell back into the pack. Then they weren't quick enough. The car in the straight line was a big deficit. And on the team radio, we heard Lewis say, you know, we're definitely going to have it on after this race. He asked him what he meant by this message. He said, it's something we need to take offline. We need to do better. We need to change things. Well, they were doomed before they turned a wheel on Sunday because there was no plan. That was the big issue, really. You know, we all thought they were going to work it out before the race and have a plan on the way down to turn one. And it turns out there was just no plan. So, John, it's probably not surprising, really, but this has gone wrong. Yeah, I think what's interesting, and we discussed this last night, was if you go into a race like here, and we've seen this happen with Piastri and Norris and McLaren in the past, you need a plan. You need rules of engagement. What is acceptable? What is the best plan to help this team succeed? This was put to Lewis about the plan and he says, here, there are no rules. It's something we need to address. He referenced Mercedes and the famous rules of engagement that existed between him and Nico Rosberg. There'd been some trouble, but they knew what the rules of engagement were. He said, here, there are no rules. And I said, was this not even discussed in strategy meetings? Was there nothing at all? And he just smiled. So I think this is something he says that, you know, we need to address this now. We need to get this on the table and we need to make changes. So the teamwork isn't working, but also kind of operationally, the strategic errors isn't there. I mean, going back to qualifying, you know, the tyres weren't on Lewis's car when Charles was already out on track ready to tow him and things like that. And it's bubbling into a bit of a repeating pattern, isn't it? Because there were errors also in Budapest and Zandvoort too. I think they're coming off a run of races where the car potential has been quite strong. They've had opportunities to get decent podium finishes, fight for victories and it slipped through their fingers for various reasons. Hungary qualifying, for example, the radio message to Lewis not warning about Piastris, got blocked, got moved back. Pit stops in the race, they just weren't quite correct, pitting under the VSC. In Zandvoort, you saw the strategy between Lewis and Charles wasn't spot on. Here, they had a perfect opportunity with slipstreams. It didn't work because the two cars got separated. Lewis couldn't get his eye in. It's not gelling as much as Lewis would like to see it gelling. He's not saying make me number one and completely ignore Charles. He understands this is a competitive environment. What he thinks is it needs to work as a team. It needs to improve, it needs to change and it basically needs team principal Fred Vasseur. So I said, where does it need to change? He says it starts at the top. Fred has to sort this out. Yeah, because every decision trickles down from there, doesn't it? So is it going to change in time for Madrid, only a week away? I think there are some elements to this. I think there are the operational changes that Lewis has talked about, which I think relates to communication, strategy approach, clarification of how you approach things, what you do, your understanding, those chains of command on the pit wall, everything that Ferrari hasn't got right over recent races. That won't be changed for Madrid, but it's something you can go back to the factory with, you can sort out and you can address and move forwards. I think in terms of the situation between Charles and Lewis and those two working together and a plan of attack, that's something that can be addressed in the short term. You were at Fred Vasseur tonight. What did he say about the potential for team orders or suiting one of those drivers? Well, maybe partly conveniently, he said he hadn't talked to the drivers yet in terms of the Term 1, so he kind of excused himself from commenting on that. In terms of the team orders, he doesn't want to back either driver, he wants to keep open. He actually referenced McLaren last year and he said, oh, well, if McLaren would have thrown its weight behind Oscar Piastri last year here at this very circuit, then Max Verstappen would have snuck through the middle of them and taken the title. It's not quite the same scenario, because as you said, that's not what Hamilton's asking for. It's more the fact that they don't even back the right driver in a particular race. It's not about throwing everything behind one driver. It's about making sensible choices to and clearly today, the best result was not achieved. So, yeah, that's Fred's position on it. Yeah, and I think that what annoys Lewis perhaps the most is that he has been talking about this for a while now. This isn't something that just flared up at Monza here today. It's been bubbling away for a few races. He's talked about the need to improve these areas and he said it's far too late for these decisions to come. It's many, many weeks too late. But I think it's important to explain that this isn't Lewis slating the team and he's unhappy about everything. He says things need to improve. He's going to work with it. He's going to tell the team what he thinks. He said that there's only so much you can say, so much you can push and shout from the mountaintop. So he's pushing hard, but he has faith that there are a lot of good people at Ferrari. He said it's painful that we have races like this and the Ferrari people are pushing so hard to bring improvements, do a lot of work to get them into this position where the car package is quite strong. It's painful for them to have to go home to their families after results like this that he says simply aren't good enough. Yeah, and for him as well, it's painful for him to have to say that to Ferrari and to speak out negatively. He doesn't want to do that, but it's taken to that extreme because things are going so wrong. And also, you know, on the side of him and Leclerc, it's just something not quite gelling at the moment. Ferrari don't seem on top of it. You know, Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc was always a very good relationship, but Ferrari hasn't figured out how to manage that. And in terms of the title picture, they've got to, haven't they? Because you kind of put this to him already, but it seems like it already might be too late. Yeah, I think yesterday, I think he still believed that this championship was possible. He said there's light at the end of the tunnel, but it's getting dimmer if we don't work together. So I think he was anticipating, you know, this was a calling card to the team to let's sort of plan out, let's work together, use the opportunity having two cars at the front. They were the only team to have that, only the top teams to have it, to move forward, get some points, start chipping down that gap to Kimi and work forward. For then that to not happen, for it all to go wrong at turn one, I think was an element of frustration. And I think he is pretty clear, you know, we've got to change things and this relates to operations as well. If we continue to travel the same path, we're just going to get the same result and the same thing can't keep happening. So he wants change, but he wants change to make Ferrari better. It's not because he wants, he's unhappy with things and is about to disappear out. Operation and teamwork aside, has Ferrari actually got a quick enough car and engine to win this championship? I think there was potential to do it. They've obviously got quite a strong, aggressive development approach. I asked Fred Vasseur over the weekend about the development plan till the end of the season. It's obviously Mercedes has talked about limits on cost cap. Fred said we can keep pushing to the end of the year, so there will be more aero upgrades. They've got Adewo 2 here, but it's still a deficit. Fred Vasseur, I think, mentioned today that you see some of the teams, manufacturers, they'll be 10 kilometres quicker on one straight, then 10 kilometres slower on the other as they were moving deployment. He said Ferrari was just 10 kilometres slower on every straight. Hamilton called it mind-blowing, didn't he? That Mercedes just whizzed past it. Vasseur said it's impossible to manage the situation for the drivers because you need to burn more energy to try to keep up, but by burning more energy, you have less deployment, so it becomes a spiral. As you're right, Lewis said it's mind-blowing the advantage Mercedes has, but we're moving to tracks that should suit Ferrari a bit better. We know it's got a power deficit. Madrid should be a good opportunity and I think some of the higher speed circuits, although power hasn't been a strength, we saw at Silverstone, we saw a bit at Spa as well, that in high-speed corners, that car is actually quite strong. So, as we go to tracks, especially when the temperatures are up because it's very gentle on its tyres, it's been a problem for qualifying. This is why fighting for grid positions has been quite a challenge this year because it's a struggle to switch the tyres on. But if we go to Malaysia, for example, high-speed circuit, it has got straights but should be good for tyres. Austin's the same thing, even a place like Singapore. So, there are opportunities to stay there. The difficulty is it probably had one shot at this championship if it nailed that teamwork, if it nailed the operations, if it got everything lined up. And as Lewis Hamilton warned tonight, it's too late.