Ferrari Formula 1 team principal Frederic Vasseur admitted team responsibility for a costly qualifying error that handed Lewis Hamilton a three-place grid penalty at the Hungarian Grand Prix, compounding a difficult stretch for the Scuderia as championship deficits widen mid-season.
Hungarian Grand Prix
Ferrari has acknowledged that it made a costly mistake that resulted in Lewis Hamilton being slapped with a three-place grid penalty after qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix. Hamilton had one of his best qualifying performances since joining Ferrari, finishing behind Lando Norris in McLaren. The seven-time world champion was later penalized for interfering with Oscar Piastri in Q3, forcing him to fall from second place on the grid to fifth for Sunday’s race.
After the FIA announced its decision, Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur made it clear the team, not Hamilton, was primarily responsible for what happened. Vasseur spoke after qualifying and said Ferrari didn’t give Hamilton the information he needed in a timely fashion.
It's our mistake,
Vasseur said. The Ferrari boss added, He got the information much too late. By the time we told him Oscar was coming, it was already too late to react properly.
The Ferrari boss said Hamilton had obeyed the team’s orders during qualifying, but the late radio contact meant he had limited time to get out of the way of Piastri.
We have to do a better job. The communication wasn't good enough, and we take responsibility for that,
Vasseur added.
Italian Grand Prix
Tensions within the Scuderia resurfaced following a bruising Italian Grand Prix at Monza, where Hamilton managed only a sixth-place finish after a clash with his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc, which he thought was the result of the team’s failure to listen to his entreaties to manage their drivers and execute races better. The race at Monza was won by Kimi Antonelli after a remarkable comeback by the Mercedes driver from 19th on the grid. Having been 59 points back Hamilton now trails Antonelli by 76 with 10 meetings remaining and he felt that Ferrari not prioritising his title chances, coupled with operational failures, had finally cost him a shot at the drivers’ championship.
From today, we’ve just lost so much ground to them on points. It’s far too late for those decisions to come,
he said of giving him priority over Leclerc. “It’s many, many weeks too late. All I can do is just try and turn up. I’ll get up tomorrow morning and I’ll give it my best. I don’t know how many points it is now but it’s an amount and with the pace that they [Mercedes] have, it is a very, very difficult amount to close up.”
Leclerc did not finish the race after a huge crash on lap two from which he emerged unhurt. Before that on the first lap at the first chicane, Hamilton looked to go past his teammate but was squeezed wide, went off and dropped to 10th place. The seven-time champion said immediately that Leclerc had driven him off track and noted pointedly that the incident demonstrated where Ferrari had been going wrong.
I'm here to win and i think this team can win,
Hamilton said. We couldn't win this race but to win championships you have to pick up every point and the last few races have been difficult with penalties and stuff.
He added, And then today I lost several seconds behind Charles, which I think ultimately could have made the difference in the end.
Hamilton stated, My goal is to try and lead this team to the championship. We've got some work to do, for sure.
He contrasted Ferrari’s actions with those of Mercedes. With Russell in second, and caught by his team-mate Antonelli and the two Ferraris behind, Mercedes ordered the Briton out of the way of his team-mate late in the race to ensure Antonelli lost no time and consolidated second place.
What's clear is I'm looking at them and seeing Mercedes. They executed. They got the car, they are fighting for the championship and did it straight away. Here, sitting back, it's something that we need to discuss. Hamilton
If I look at the race now, I can do it frankly, but my issue is that we didn't tell Lewis that we were expecting him to go to the end, and it was not a matter of pushing. We didn't want to tell [Hamilton] the strategy at this stage, because we didn't want to disclose it to the competitors, because we wanted to keep him on track until the end [of the race].Vasseur noted,He was able to keep Antonelli behind him, and I think it would have been the right call. Charles was supposed to pit. We extended one lap, and it was a kind of confusion, but I'm not worried about this – everybody will be… Ferrari
Monza
No one has secured more pole positions at Monza than Lewis Hamilton: he has started from the front of the grid at the Royal Park on seven occasions. But since Hungary 2023, the seven-time Formula 1 champion has failed to secure a Grand Prix pole position, and his chances of changing that at Monza in 2026 have vanished into thin air. No Ferrari on the front row, Charles Leclerc fourth fastest, Lewis Hamilton in P5 – given the high expectations of Ferrari fans, this is a blow for the Scuderia, which has secured 24 pole positions here at Monza.
Lewis Hamilton never really seemed to get into his stride in the final practice session, finishing eighth in Q1 and scraping through to the final qualifying segment in 10th place. Explaining the difficulties, Lewis said: That was an extremely difficult qualifying session. In free practice, my Ferrari felt really good. Because I was happy with the car, I left the set-up unchanged for qualifying.
Hamilton further explained: “The feel of the car was right at the start of Q1 too. Then we waited quite a long time before our next run, and suddenly that good feeling had vanished. I don’t know if that’s down to the delicate balance between track temperature, tyre pressure and the temperature of the rollers. We absolutely must get to the bottom of that.” He concluded: What we then showed in Q3 was simply awful; we executed it really badly; I went out onto the track and felt completely lost.
