Why Ferrari's convinced it got Miami team orders right

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur defended the handling of team orders between Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton during the Miami Grand Prix, arguing that “we did a good job” from the pitwall despite both drivers being unhappy about the situation.

While both Leclerc and Hamilton were diplomatic after the race, both made it clear that they still had concerns.

Leclerc said “I’m not going to comment too much” but that “it’s obvious today was not the way we want to manage the race”.

Hamilton also questioned the time he lost behind Leclerc in the second stint, saying “I don’t think the decision came quick enough” but also saying “I have no problems with the team or with Charles”.

Both were more emphatic in the cockpit, with Hamilton in particular criticising what he called “not good teamwork” over the radio having initially been told to stay in DRS range of Leclerc. Even after he was told the two cars would be swapped, he quipped “have a tea break while you’re at it, come on”.

This was during the second stint of the race, with Leclerc and Hamilton running seventh and eighth after both passing Carlos Sainz’s Williams just after the restart coming out of a virtual safety car restart on lap 34/57.

At this point, Hamilton was on medium tyres and Leclerc was on hards. It wasn’t until lap 38 that the swap was made at Turn 17.

Leclerc promptly reported that “I need Lewis to go faster”, and as Hamilton was unable to catch Antonelli, with the deficit of just under three seconds, they were ordered to swap back on lap 52.

Although Leclerc was told the swap would be made on lap 51, first at Turn 11 and then at Turn 17, Hamilton wasn’t told in time for the first of these opportunities and questioned the decision for the second.

However, he did relinquish seventh place on the run to Turn 11 on lap 52 - albeit subsequently sarcastically asking engineer Riccardo Adami when given an update about the time gap to Carlos Sainz, "do you want me to let him past as well".

Vasseur was adamant that Ferrari was not flat-footed in imposing team orders originally despite this seemingly preventing Hamilton making the most of his medium tyres. He argued that what delay there was resulted from the need to understand whether or not Hamilton really was faster.

“It didn't take so long, it was one lap and half, or something like this,” said Vasseur when asked by The Race why it took so long to swap Hamilton and Leclerc.

“When we have two cars, not with the same strategy, the first thing to understand if it's faster when you are behind due to the DRS or not. It took us one lap, it means that it's one minute 30 to understand, and then we asked them to swap.

“But honestly, perhaps you can argue at the end that we would have been better to do it directly, but we didn't know if it was the DRS effect or not. And I think we take the tough decision because it's never easy to ask Charles or Lewis to swap. But we did it, and they did it on track. I didn't see a lot of [other] teams doing it.”

When Hamilton was ordered to drop behind his team-mate, Leclerc, who had pushed for this, suggested the risk of losing more time to Antonelli meant that “it’s OK” to stay in position.

However, Vasseur explained after the race that it was important to stick with the team’s existing policy when it comes to managing such situations, hence Hamilton was instructed again to let Leclerc past.

“Because it's the policy of the team that if you ask them to swap,” said Vasseur when asked about why this happened.. “If you don't ask them to swap, they don't overtake. If you ask them to swap, it's because we think that the second car is faster than the first one at that stage of the race.

“We try to catch up the guy who is in front, and if we don't do it, we swap back to respect the initial position at the stage of the race when it was clear that we wouldn't be able to fight Antonelli with Lewis."

Vasseur said that “I can perfectly understand the frustrations of the drivers” but reiterated that he felt “as a team, we did a good job”. He also highlighted the fact that the way the radio messages are dropped into the TV broadcast can distort the timings.

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“The radio transmissions, first you have to understand that it's FOM who is managing the delay,” said Vasseur. “It means that sometimes we're asking them something and you have it live, half a lap later, or one half later but it was still under control.

“And then we have tonnes of information that we are discussing with them about the car, the set-up of the car and so it's not always easy to ask them to do it before Turn 11 or Turn 18.

"Honestly, I think that we did what we have to do. You can always argue that he would have been better to do it half a lap before or half a lap later."