Charles Leclerc has denied any bad blood between the Ferrari drivers after Lewis Hamilton was involved in a radio spat with team management during the Miami Grand Prix.
Hamilton started behind Leclerc in Sunday’s race and was frustrated by Ferrari’s decision not to immediately let him pass his teammate to gain ground on Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli.
The two Ferraris overtook Williams’ Carlos Sainz to move into seventh and eighth, with Hamilton keen to press on and overtake Antonelli while on faster medium tyres than his teammate, on hard.
Ferrari prevaricated before eventually giving him the go-ahead, leading Hamilton to exasperatedly tell them to “have a tea break while you’re at it,” but the seven-time world champion had lost the advantage of the faster tyres by the time the decision was made.
The Monegasque driver made it clear afterwards that the problem was with the team’s strategy, rather than between the drivers. “There’s no bad feelings with Lewis, not at all,” he said.
“I understand as well that Lewis is trying to do something different, so I appreciate that.
“I would have done the same thing as if I was him and trying to be a bit more aggressive with the medium tyres.”
There was a further issue later in the race as Hamilton was asked to swap back with Leclerc, although neither car was able to pass Antonelli, and when told Sainz was closing the gap to him Hamilton replied, “You want to let him past as well?”
Leclerc, who finished seventh ahead of Hamilton in eighth, added that Ferrari were dealing with two different problems, one of strategy and the other being the pace of the car.
“We need to separate the two things,” he said.
“Yes, we need to fix those [team strategy] issues that probably cost us one position, but the other seven or six positions are down to the car and we need to make it better.”
Hamilton stood by his stance after the race, saying that he spoke with Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur in the aftermath. “I just put my hand on his shoulder and said, ‘dude, calm down. Don’t be so sensitive.’
“I could have said way worse things on the radio.
“You’ve got to understand, we’re under a huge amount of pressure in the cars, you’re never going to get the most peaceful messages come through in the heat of the battle.”
