May 5 (GMM) All is well with the personal and professional relationships inside Ferrari, ambassador and former test driver Marc Gene insists.
Amid ongoing performance issues, Lewis Hamilton’s troubled acclimatisation to the Maranello based team hit a new low on Sunday when he expressed repeated anger with his engineer and team on the radio.
The 40-year-old scolded engineer Riccardo Adami for talking to him under braking and whilst battling, and sarcastically asked if Adami would like a “tea break” while they discussed a request to be shuffled ahead of Charles Leclerc.
“This is not good teamwork, that’s all I’m going to say,” Hamilton added, among a slew of other complaints and words including “Jeez” and “fricking”.
Leclerc restrained his own complaints to the car’s sluggish performance, declaring about the other internal issues: “I don’t know what I can say and what I can’t say, but we have to talk.
“We shouldn’t try to do better, we have to do better. But I have to talk more with the team than with Lewis, because I’m not angry with him – there was no bad intention. He wanted to maximise, like me.
“I don’t know what Lewis was saying, but I don’t hold it against him at all in any case. Unfortunately, I’ll go with the boring answer – I won’t comment too much. And there are no hard feelings towards Lewis, absolutely none.
“We just need to be better as a team.”
Hamilton also insisted that he had calmed down after the chequered flag waved.
“It’s frustrating in those moments,” said the seven time world champion. “What’s our objective? Do we compete against each other or try to overtake the others?
“But let’s talk internally. I was frustrated at the time, but not anymore. People will take it out of context and say worse things than I did. I was only being sarcastic.”
Hamilton continued: “Fred (Vasseur) came into my room. I put my hand on his shoulder and said ‘Mate, calm down. Don’t take it so personally’.”
Indeed, there are rumours that Hamilton is already losing support – both in the Italian media and among top management – amid his struggles and his increasingly vocal criticisms.
“I’m sure there are some sensitivities, but I’m not feeling sensitive,” said the Briton. “We’re not where we want to be.”
As usual, team boss Frederic Vasseur played down the controversy. “I can understand the frustration on both sides because it’s never easy to swap places,” he said.
“We asked them twice and they did it twice, the feedback is another matter. But they did the job we asked them to do.”
Also dismissing the controversy, and rumours of internal discord, was former F1 driver and continuing Ferrari ambassador, Marc Gene.
“The relationship between the engineers and the drivers is good, as is the relationship between Charles and Lewis,” the Spaniard insisted on Sky Italia.
Well-known Dutch racing personality Tom Coronel, however, admitted he doesn’t like the ‘new’ Hamilton.
“Do you really want to know what I think?” he started. “I don’t like listening to him anymore. He’s not the driver I knew from before.
“He’s always looking around in interviews, chewing his gum, and doesn’t seem to be very interested.”
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