Lewis Hamilton has lost trust with Ferrari and the ending is going to be ugly

There has been a huge fallout following the Singapore Grand Prix at Ferrari and how Lewis Hamilton started P3 and ended up finishing P6.

Mainly, it's down to Ferrari saying they called him in to pit under the virtual safety car, and, officially, the seven-time champion 'missing' the pit-lane, which is something he doesn't tend to do, ever (oi, no China 2007 jokes please.)

The onboard footage from the incident shows Hamilton not making any attempt to pit, having told the team he didn't want to pit which means he either forgot or he simply overruled the team and stayed out. Judge for yourself here.

Hamilton fans have been raging about this, saying this team radio doesn't exist and that Vasseur is lying. Explaining why Hamilton then apologised after the race for going against team orders, the excuse is he is covering for the team.

This doesn't wash. If Hamilton has been hard done by, he will for sure let you know as soon as possible.

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All not well between Hamilton and Vasseur

Looking for any excuse to defend what was an awful race for Hamilton, they did perhaps stumble on something and that was Fred Vasseur getting quite irritated post-race, and happy to pin the blame on Hamilton for not pitting.

This all leads to the bigger question going on at Ferrari right now, which is does Hamilton trust the team anymore? If he doesn't, what's the end game?

Why would Hamilton defy his team thinking he knows better to try and get a better race result, if the assumption is he thinks they are making the right calls for him.

At the Bahrain Grand Prix, he was overruled on the radio against him starting on intermediate tyres that he claims cost him the chance of going for the win.

In Singapore he started on the mediums, pitted, went fast on the softs and after running into his team-mate exiting the pits in Charles Leclerc, was expecting to be let by on the faster strategy.

With a radio request to his team that he could go faster, he was instead told to preserve the tyres rather than be given a free pass against Leclerc. This would have frustrated Hamilton to no end.

Hamilton also hates losing, it's what makes him a champion. So the thought of losing out to Leclerc for second place would have been eating at him. If he follows him into the pits under the VSC, he was almost guaranteed to take third. Gamble on strategy... who knows?

Well, Ferrari for a start. His race engineer Carlo Santi informed him that it was sub optimal strategy, but Hamilton wanted to see if he could nurse those tyres until the end.

After the race, a grouchy Vasseur said: “We kept the door open for the two options, depending on VSC, and that was the case.

“We called him, we called them both to pit. It would have been P2-P3 because we were P2-P3 on track, and he missed the pit entry, and honestly it’s a bit of a shame because he’s losing a podium also.

“It was crystal clear on the radio. But now let’s be focused on Austin. The performance this weekend was ok. We have to be focused on the future."

Now, Vasseur can bang on about Austin being next and it's all water under the bridge etc, but it's deeper than that. Hamilton's confidence in Ferrari won't be improved just because he made a personal call and got it wrong.

Hamilton going his own way at Ferrari

The reasons for him doing that in the first place have not gone away. Maybe Hamilton believes that Ferrari favour Leclerc, who has a long-term contract into 2030.

Hamilton's relationships inside Ferrari don't appear that strong, with Vasseur doing little to deflect the blame of the 41-year-old after the race.

He's also not getting what he wants, having requested a Ferarri code of conduct between drivers after he clashed with Leclerc at the Italian Grand Prix, his request was ignored.

If Hamilton is hoping for more support from above Vasseur at Ferrari, then maybe calling them out at the start of the month wasn't the best ploy, when he offered a public backing of Vasseur and said: "Fred is a fantastic leader. He really is the guy to take the team in the right direction.

"However, there is a structure that's been there for some time. Whether or not that needs looking at - there are also obviously people above Fred - and it's not about one person."

There doesn't seem to be a happy end to this. Even if Hamilton goes out and wins the next race in Austin, who's to say the issue won't resurface at the next race or even just still linger.

Hamilton doesn't tend to be comfortable at teams where he is not the No 1 driver. This was seen at McLaren and at Mercedes, and it's heading that way at Ferrari as he and Leclerc retain equal status.

Ferrari are having a better season than last year, yet they feel much more destabilised than they been since perhaps when Vasseur came in to replace Mattia Binotto for the 2023 season.

The signs are this will not end well at Ferrari yet the death could be a slow one. Hamilton is staying until at least the end of 2027 and there are no obvious replacements for Vasseur, and I include Christian Horner here.

Ferrari could end up stumbling into 2027 with an unhappy camp of Vasseur and Hamilton and the longer this mistrust within the team goes on, the uglier it's going to end.

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Written by

Dan Ripley - Global Editor

I've been a massive F1 fan since the mid 1990s and continue to study the history of the sport long before that. As an experienced motor sport reporter covering F1, MotoGP and the LeMans 24 Hour race, being part of GPFans has allowed me to work with a diverse team with all sorts of different backgrounds in watching the sport and given me a greater appreciation of F1.

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