Lewis Hamilton at loss of words after F1 Spanish GP, as Frederic Vasseur notes of some issues on his side but don’t reveal what they were.
Already on Friday, Ferrari’s Hamilton was not so pleased with the car to start the F1 Spanish GP weekend. He qualified a good fifth and was fourth after clearing George Russell at the start. But the downhill came then when he was asked to step aside to let through Charles Leclerc.
He was able to stay on his tail for some time but not for long. Although he managed to stay clear of Russell, but it was not by much. A different strategy saw Hamilton drop behind the Mercedes driver – a position he couldn’t recover even with the safety car in place.
In fact, the safety car proved to be worst case scenario for Hamilton. He managed to keep Nico Hulkenberg for a couple of laps behind, but with the German on a brand new soft compound as opposed to Hamilton’s old tyres, the Sauber driver cleared the Ferrari to take sixth.
A penalty to Max Verstappen allowed Hulkenberg to be fifth, while a dejected Hamilton was sixth. He was low on confidence in the parc ferme and reflected in the media pen too. He spoke only few words, while nodding away when in the written media pen after the TV commitments.
“I have no idea why it was so bad,” said Hamilton. “Worst race I’ve experienced, balance-wise. Zero [positives to take from the weekend].” That’s all he said to several questions put forward. In the TV pen, he spoke a little more, but it was on the dejection lines still.
“Not particularly, it was just not a great day,” said Hamilton. “Strategy was good, team did a great job. Just…what do you want me to say? I just had a really bad day, and I’ve got nothing to say. It was a difficult day, there’s nothing else to add to it, it was terrible. There’s no point explaining it. It’s not your fault, I just don’t know what else to say. I’m sure they won’t. It’s just, it’s probably just me.”
When Hamilton’s reaction was shared by the media to team boss Vasseur, the Frenchman played down the situation. In fact, he noted about a potential problem in the car, but didn’t wish to divulge and simply said, ‘I knew, I won’t tell you’. He added on a problem with Charles Leclerc’s car too.
“You are experienced enough to draw a conclusion after the first words of the driver,” continued Vasseur. “If you want to create a polemic, you can. But it’s not the case. I think he did 70 per cent of the race in front of Russell. I’m not sure that Russell said that the race was a disaster. But then we had an issue on the car the last stint, before the Safety Car. The result is not good, but he did 45 laps in front of Russell.”
Here’s Nico Hulkenberg passing Lewis Hamilton: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-spanish-grand-prix-hulkenberg-powers-past-hamilton-to-grab-p6-on-penultimate-lap.1833745324205601569
Here’s Nico Hulkenberg on passing Lewis Hamilton
Here’s Charles Leclerc, Frederic Vasseur on podium
