Life at Ferrari hasn’t gotten off to the smoothest of starts for Lewis Hamilton. The seven-time world champion left Mercedes after a 12-year-long stint with expectations of fighting for the world title again with the Maranello-based team.
However, as it so happens, his former team, Mercedes, are performing better than Ferrari this year. The Silver Arrows, who finished fourth in the Constructors’ last year, are clearly the second-fastest car on the grid, while Ferrari seem to have the fourth-fastest car.
On top of this, Hamilton is also facing a steep learning curve with the SF-25. To make matters even worse for the Briton, his relationship with his new race engineer, Riccardo Adami, has also gotten off on the wrong foot.
In the past, the seven-time world champion has been pretty vocal about the feedback he has received from Adami over the team radio comms. However, it all boiled over at the Miami GP last weekend, when the duo had an exchange that was nothing short of a verbal spat.
Hamilton was on fresher medium tires behind his teammate, Charles Leclerc, who was nursing the hard compound. Naturally, the Briton wanted to be released from the dirty air of the sister SF-25 to chase behind Mercedes’ Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
So, Hamilton asked his team to swap the drivers — even reminding them of the Chinese GP where he himself initiated a switch when he was ahead of Leclerc in a similar situation — but the team only obliged two laps too late.
By the time Hamilton was allowed to pass the #16 driver, he had already lost crucial performance from his tires. This left Hamilton frustrated, who berated Adami. Out of the radio messages broadcast by the FOM, Hamilton called out the pit wall for being indecisive.
“Take another cup of tea, while you think about it,” he lashed back at Adami. After being asked to give the place back to Leclerc once again, Hamilton was informed by Adami about Carlos Sainz, who was the chasing car behind him.
This prompted Hamilton to sarcastically bite back, “You want me to let him pass as well?”
Lewis Hamilton, yarış mühendisi Adami’yi sert bir dille uyarıyor.
“Lanet olası bir savaştayken benimle konuşmayı kes dostum! Frenleme bölgesindeyim ve hala benimle konuşuyorsun.” #F1 pic.twitter.com/OnAzzJOroO
— Ajansspor FormuIa 1 (@AjanssporF1) May 6, 2025
Amid all of this, Dutch F1 journalist Olav Mol has revealed a hidden radio message that the FOM did not broadcast. He lambasted them for not showing the full picture. “I also heard another on-board radio, which was not broadcast. I think this of the FOM is bad. If you broadcast three parts here, you also have to broadcast the fourth part,” he began.
“He really says: Jesus man, don’t talk to me,” he added. Mol suggested that the duo were also speaking over each other, hinting at a very tense verbal spat ensuing over the airwaves at the Maranello-based team.
That said, Hamilton believes that he did not cross any line and was being honest with the team about his frustrations. Planet F1 quoted Hamilton as saying, “I don’t know what you’re going to write, or whether I was disrespectful or whatever, I honestly don’t feel I was.”
Whatever the reasons behind Hamilton’s outburst, Ferrari’s indecisiveness on the pit wall and constant strategy errors have been plaguing them for almost half a decade now. With Fred Vasseur’s induction back in 2023, it seemed as though that would change. However, three years into his reign at Ferrari, things have only gotten worse.
