F1 News
Vasseur working on Hamilton radio: 'It was not a clean one at all'
The Australian Grand Prix marked Lewis Hamilton's highly anticipated Ferrari debut, which offered a variety of challenges from unpredictable weather to adapting to his new team. Throughout the race, it became apparent that Hamilton was not satisfied with his engineer's style of communication, which Team Principal Fred Vasseur reflected on after the race.
Having spent a decade at his old team Mercedes, some issues settling in with his new team were inevitable, one of which was Hamilton's frustrations with his new race engineer Riccardo Adami. Throughout the race, the British driver was frustrated with his engineer's communication style of giving what Hamilton viewed as too much input, with Hamilton repeatedly asking his engineer to 'leave him to it'.
Communication not an issue
Reflecting on the apparent lack of harmony between his driver and engineer, Fred Vasseur reflected on the issues, stating to media present, "It's the first race, the first time that we have to communicate between the pit wall and the car."
"I thought that we can do a better job and to know each other a bit more. For sure it was not a clean one at all, but the strategy was difficult," Vasseur shared, referring to the strategy that Hamilton lost positions as the team chose to stay out instead of pitting for intermediate tyres along with the majority of the other drivers.
Vasseur attributed Hamilton's dissatisfaction with the radio communications to a simple settling-in issue and views it as one of many learning points for the rest of the season. "We need to find a better way to communicate between the car and the pit wall, but we will learn from race one and it's not an issue."
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