Lewis Hamilton had zero positives to take away from F1 Saudi Arabian GP, as Frederic Vasseur says it is ‘f**k**g b*llsh*t’ to create dramatic headlines.
Having qualified in the lower half of the Top 10 in F1 Saudi Arabian GP, Ferrari’s Hamilton managed to gain places but he was only seventh in the end behind the Mercedes pair, when teammate Charles Leclerc ended up on the podium. The Brit’s tough time continued in Jeddah too.
After the high in China’s sprint race, Hamilton has had a difficult time in settling in, especially on the qualifying trim. That has set him back and in trying to extract in the races, the car is not giving him that confidence to take risks and go the extra mile in securing higher places.
It was zero positivity in Saudi Arabia as Hamilton noted where nothing worked. “Zero, nothing positive to take from Saudi Arabia, except for Charles finishing on a podium, which is great for the team,” he said to the media. “It was horrible. It was horrible. Not enjoyable at all.
“I was just sliding around, didn’t have a… First stint, massive understeer, car not turning, and then massive deg, and then the second stint, slightly better balance, but still just no pace, so yeah. Yeah, it’s pretty bad,” summed up Hamilton, as team boss Vasseur is fully behind the Brit despite the tough times he is facing at Ferrari. He is remaining calm amid flurry of media headlines.
He argues that the situation is similar for others on the grid too. The Frenchman notes that nothing has changed on their end, even when Hamilton got the sprint pole and victory. “I will be 2,000 per cent behind him,” said Vasseur to media. “I will give him support and we will start from tomorrow morning to try to find solutions and reasons and to work on it early in the morning.
“But honestly, I am not too worried. If you have a look on what he did in China or what he did in the race in Bahrain last week, or even on the first part of the session in this weekend, the potential is there for sure. We just have to adjust the balance because we are, collectively, Lewis and us, we are struggling with the balance of his car and [how] he is working the tyres.
“It’s a kind of negative spot but I think the potential of the car is there and we will try to solve that. Basically, he is learning about the team, getting to work with the team. I don’t know if it was you, but in China, you said that it was on the top of this and so that we have to stay calm. In China, it was the second race of the season for us.
“It was able to do the proposition to lead the race from lap 1 to lap 18 to finish 10 seconds in front of Piastri and Verstappen. It’s not a transitional time, but for sure he’s down because when you finish the race in sixth your team-mate is on the podium. Honestly, I take it as positive that Lewis is down because if he was happy with this, it wouldn’t be normal.
“He’s a racer, he’s a competitor, he wants to get the best from what he has and for sure he’s disappointed. Now we have to work together to react together, and it will be the only way to move forward,” summed up Vasseur, who pushed off the media for making it more dramatic and looking for headlines which is ‘f**k**g b*llsh*t’.
“It’s not dramatically, we did five races so far. I know that you want to have the big headlines tomorrow that ‘Fred said this’,” continued Vasseur. “But this is f**k**g b*llsh*t. At the end of the day, we are in competition. You have ups and downs. When we have ups, we are not World Champions. When we have downs, we are not nowhere. It’s just a competition.
“I’m not sure that you draw the same conclusion with Max last week when he was seventh [in Bahrain]. It is like it is. The competition is tight. You have 10 cars and a couple of tenths. Have a look at Max. He won in Japan. He finished 30 seconds behind Piastri in Bahrain and in Saudi Arabia he was P2 and had pole position. We just have to stay calm. You can do whatever you want.
“I don’t want to worry for you. At least for us as a team, we have to work step by step. I think it paid off last year to do hundredths of seconds and hundredths of seconds and we need to keep the same approach. I will never be the guy who says we are World Champions or we are nowhere. We are a team. We are struggling on the weekend, we have good results on the weekend. It’s just that we have to improve step by step and stay calm,” summed up Vasseur.
Here’s battle between Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-saudi-arabian-grand-prix-norris-comes-out-on-top-in-battle-for-p6-with-hamilton.1829947725594876315
Here’s Charles Leclerc on maximum in Saudi Arabian GP
Here’s Lando Norris, Andrea Stella on Lewis Hamilton being the difference
