Lewis Hamilton's boss admits Ferrari mistakes as F1 title hunt falters

Lewis Hamilton's F1 boss Fred Vasseur did not sugarcoat his assessment of Ferrari's final race weekend before the summer break when speaking to media at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Heading into the 11th round of the campaign, Hamilton was enjoying P2 in the championship having hauled himself back into the title fight after overtaking George Russell in the standings following the race in Spa.

Kimi Antonelli still enjoyed a 45-point lead over the seven-time champion, but heading into the sport's annual summer shutdown, it is Antonelli who can rest easy knowing he did damage control at the Hungaroring, not Hamilton.

Both title contenders were hit by a three-place grid drop before Sunday's race had even begun, but only one of them made it to the podium.

Despite starting two places ahead of Antonelli prior to lights out, an unwise tyre decision and pit stop blunder for the Scuderia and Hamilton left the champion struggling at the wheel of his SF-26, and that was before his fourth penalty in three race weekends had been applied.

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Vasseur: Ferrari made the wrong call in Hungary

After the FIA stewards had slapped Hamilton with a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane, the 41-year-old was only able to secure a fifth-place finish and the 10 championship points that comes with it.

As a result, the former Mercedes star now trails Antonelli by 50 points with three weeks to go until he can attempt to claw back his chance of securing an eighth drivers' title.

Given the fact Hamilton picked up his late penalty in the dying moments of the race due to exceeding the pit lane speed limit by 0.1km/h, I think it's fair to say the Scuderia came undone in the pits last weekend.

They gambled by putting Hamilton and team-mate Charles Leclerc on the soft tyre for the start of the 70-lap affair despite their surrounding rivals being fitted with mediums.

This was done in the hope that it would help both drivers to gain positions early on, something that Hamilton in particular could have done with considering his three-place grid drop.

However, this decision didn't pay off and instead left the seven-time champion exposed after battling hard with Max Verstappen, suffering major tyre degradation and falling behind the race leaders on a much more vulnerable compound as a result.

This looked to be an issue that Ferrari were going to put behind them when Hamilton pitted on lap 14 and came out on track just behind Arvid Lindblad with hard tyres on.

But Red Bull retaliated by calling Verstappen into the pits and just two laps later, Ferrari's undercut had been undone and the Dutchman was able to perform an impressive overtake on the Brit.

Verstappen went on to finish the Hungarian GP in P2 despite lamenting the shifts on his RB22 and also suffering from rear tyre degradation in particular.

Speaking to French broadcaster Canal + after Sunday's race, Hamilton's boss Vasseur spoke plainly, admitting the Scuderia had not done enough throughout the Hungarian GP.

"Today we made too many mistakes," said the Ferrari team principal.

"Poor starts, wrong tyre calls and botched pit stops…"

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Written by

Kerry Violet - F1 News Editor

Having graduated from the University of Sheffield with a 2:1 in Journalism in 2022, Kerry continued her pursuit of finding a full-time position in motorsport through work with the F1 Arcade in London, where she got to meet true fans of the sport and make a live grand prix watch party memorable for them. It was here that she confirmed her dream of combining her background in journalism and love of motorsport, going on to volunteer with the female-led platform Empoword Journalism. Having completed stints as a screen editor and sports editor, Kerry landed her first F1-specific editorial role with GPFans and has thoroughly enjoyed continuing to work closely with the sport ever since. The access GPFans offers Kerry has allowed her to interview big names such as Naomi Schiff and David Coulthard and given her experiences she could only have dreamt of as a young F1 fan.

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