Lewis Hamilton showed Ferrari ‘he’s in charge’ in a tense team radio exchange as he switched places with team-mate Charles Leclerc at the Chinese Grand Prix
Lewis Hamilton showed Ferrari ‘he’s in charge’ following a tense radio exchange at the Chinese Grand Prix.
The seven-time world champion was involved in a battle with Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc in the opening laps of the Grand Prix, seeing Leclerc suffer damage to his front wing after the two collided on the opening lap.
Despite the damage to the Monegasque’s car, Leclerc was showing considerably more pace than Hamilton, and Ferrari called for the two drivers to swap positions following a pit stop.
Hamilton gave way to Leclerc at turn 1 after he had been involved in a tense radio exchange with his race engineer Riccardo Adami after making the swap. A replay of the team radio saw Hamilton told by Adami: “We want to swap this lap”. To which Hamilton replied: “I’ll tell you when we swap.”
Following the Brit’s message, Sky Sports commentator David Croft said that Hamilton was showing Ferrari ‘he was in charge’.
Fans took to social media to discuss Hamilton’s radio message, with one user writing on X: “Hamilton responding like the Final Boss.” While a second said: “Hamilton’s team radio! Welcome to Ferrari mate. The cars might be pretty but the strategists are something else…”
Having struggled to maintain a good pace, Hamilton pitted for a fresh set of hard tyres in the hope of cutting back through the field in the latter laps of the race, but to no avail, in another bold call by Ferrari.
Ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix weekend, Sky pundit Ted Kravitz said that Hamilton was “annoyed,” suggesting that his radio messages with Adami have been wrongly perceived as the two having a bad relationship.
Kravitz said: “When [Hamilton] came to the pen on Thursday, I was, as it happened, the first person who spoke to him. I could tell he was annoyed about something.
“It was only until later when an Austrian journalist, who was doing a feature about engineers, asked Lewis a question. Then I knew what Lewis was annoyed about.
“He was annoyed that people — and we were as guilty as anybody — had put together the radio messages between him and Riccardo Adami, and some people were interpreting that as if they have a bad relationship. He was annoyed, and he used that to motivate himself.”
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