Following a disastrous end to the Miami Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc insists he has no ill feeling with Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton. Leclerc and Hamilton swapped places twice amid tensions on the team radio and a controversial strategy call from the Scuderia's pit wall. The frustrating spell was bound to hamper the proceedings for Ferrari and as it turned out Charles finished seventh and Hamilton came 8th in the race on Sunday.
Hamilton, who was running on the medium tyre, grew impatient as he was kept behind Leclerc, who was managing his pace on the hard compound. The 7-time Formula One champion repeatedly requested the Ferrari to let him go past and challenge the cars ahead, but the team delayed giving such an order.
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Clerc Denies Rift with Hamilton
Hamilton eventually received the go-ahead but it was too late and he failed to catch Mercedes' Andrea Kimi Antonelli in sixth place. Ferrari reversed the order again later in the race, with Leclerc regaining position. As the world witnessed the back-and-forth between the Mercedes drivers, there were loud speculations that the episode had left a rift between Leclerc and Hamilton. However, following the culmination of the race, Leclerc pushed all the assertions to drain by stating that the team needed to handle such scenarios better going forward.
“I knew Lewis was on a medium, so if anything he would struggle a bit more to go to the end than me, so we had to take care of tyres,” commented the Monegasque.
“But I understand as well that he wanted to try and do something different, so I appreciate that.
“I mean I would have done the same thing if I was him, trying to be a bit more aggressive with the medium tyres, so there's no bad feelings with Lewis, not at all.
“We need to do better, that's for sure. Today was not ideal and was far from maximising our potential, but we've got to regroup as a team and be better.”
Despite acknowledging Hamilton’s point of view, Leclerc hinted at some internal miscommunication and lack of preparation for such a situation, suggesting Ferrari’s decision-making in the moment left him vulnerable.
“I just think we maybe should have discussed a little bit more before doing the swap because obviously you are trying to go to the end with those tyres, so I'm trying to do a good job with my tyres and then everything is tricky, and I did not expect Carlos [Sainz] to be so close.
“All of this made the situation a bit trickier, but again I think there's plenty for us to look at.
“As I said, we need to do a step, and we need to be robust enough that whenever we find ourselves in those situations we do better.”