Frederic Vasseur affirmed that the swap call came from Lewis Hamilton in F1 Chinese GP, as Charles Leclerc adds on drive despite the damage before disqualification.
The radio game was again highlighted part of Hamilton’s outing in F1 Chinese GP. This time it was to do with the swap that they did in the early part of the grand prix. The world feed suggested that the call came from Ferrari, seeing the pace that Leclerc had at that point of the grand prix.
And that the Monegasque was hurrying them to do so. But the world feed missed a crucial radio from Hamilton when he stated, ‘I think I’m gonna let Charles go because I’m struggling’. The radio messages aired on the broadcast came after this message and affirmation from Riccardo Adami.
His race engineer asked him to look after the tyres at high speed when Hamilton started to struggle. The swap eventually happened after couple of laps of initial discussion. They did come very close at times before it as the duo chased Mercedes’ George Russell for third position.
Post-race, both Hamilton and Vasseur noted how the swap came about. The initial ask from Ferrari was to swap at Turn 14, but for three laps it didn’t happen. The Brit did so at Turn 1 eventually which left Leclerc a bit confused. The Monegasque also played down their Lap 1 hit.
In trying to pass Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, Leclerc clipped his front wing endplate which cost him 20-30 points of downforce. The team decided not to change the wing and carry on seeing the pace. Vasseur was confused by the strangeness as well, but he didn’t buy the Monegasque’s statement.
Leclerc felt the car was good on race pace but not in qualifying, which Vasseur denied as he cited how they did in sprint. The Frenchman didn’t wish to jump to a conclusion. All of this was undone when both cars were disqualified, with the Monegasque found to be underweight and the Brit short on skid wear.
Team orders/swap –
Hamilton: “It was okay, we didn’t really have a battle. He just had more pace than me, I was just struggling in the car and so I told the team that I was going to give the place. It was my idea.”
Vasseur: “I think this is a joke from…because the first call came from Lewis, that Lewis asked us to swap. But to make the show, to create the mess around the situation, they broadcast only the second part of the equation. I’ll discuss with them. We have to work for the team, we have to consider what is best for Ferrari and it is agreed between the cars and drivers before the race. It is not an issue. Even the best proof of this is it came from the driver, that ‘okay I am losing the pace, I am keen to swap’.”
Pace drop from sprint to race –
Hamilton: “We both made set-up changes going into qualifying, it was not particular one person, we both had it. For me, the balance was completely off. The window is quite narrow but there is performance there. In hindsight, we should have done something similar to what we had in sprint, but we are always trying to move forward, so yeah, it didn’t up well but it is what it is.
Leclerc: “Honestly, I think it wasn’t that quick it felt really bad. I think we were generally quick, we’ve seen it yesterday with Lewis, myself we saw it towards the end of the sprint where I was very strong. All in all, I think we had a really good race car, and today I did a step with the car, and I think that made it a lot better for today. I felt there was a lot more potential, destroying fronts [tyres] and [losing] 30 points of downforce is a huge amount. I do not expect the car to be faster like that, otherwise we have a problem.
“Honestly I think we had the pace to fight with the guys at the front and when I say the front I mean the McLarens. Lewis has shown it, I think on my side yesterday I was doing a really good job, in qualifying I did a better job and I was looking forward to the race and that the changes I had done would be better for the race. It was but unfortunately couldn’t use the full potential of it.”
Vasseur: “You can ask the same question to everybody on the grid but I think it is quite difficult to understand the form from one day to other one like Piastri in sprint lost seven seconds in the last two or three laps to Lewis and Max was nowhere in sprint, in the main race he was struggling in the first stint and then he was back. I think we are all on the edge with the tyres for set-up reasons or whatever.
“It was very strange to…and we don’t deny multiple times to understand the picture but it is true that the pace from Charles considering the….I was discussing with Charles for the first time few minutes ago, if you consider the loss of downforce we had with the front wing, I think we could be satisfied with the result and the performance. But we need to understand exactly what happened. Honestly, we were surprised with the pace of Charles in the race. I think he wasn’t.”
Lap 1 hit –
Leclerc: “Honestly, yes [it was a racing incident]. You can look at it from every different side, but I think it was just racing incident, I was down the inside, I didn’t really want to overtake, I just want to position myself in Turn 3, I saw Lewis was defending from the car on the outside, I didn’t expect him to cut back, once he cut back I was surprised and then I couldn’t do much, Lewis couldn’t much either because he didn’t see me. All in all, it was simply unfortunate to have that damage in our car but luckily it didn’t cause any others.”
Vasseur: “I think they didn’t have the same angle and Charles lost the car little bit on the curve, he was fighting with Max and I am not even sure that we will discuss this point, it is not controversial at all.”
Quali pace vs race pace –
Leclerc: “The problem is we’re missing too much in qualifying pace. Again Lewis did a really good job on sprint quali but I think he outperformed a little bit the car, then in [grand prix] quali we saw our real performance, that’s where we stand in the short run. If we keep doing that, it’s going to be very difficult for us to win races because McLaren are much faster on short runs, and I would say similar to us on long runs, so if we start three or four positions behind, it’s game over so we’ve got to improve our short runs.”
Vasseur: “Don’t do this type of conclusion because Lewis did pole position in sprint, he was able to stay at the front, race pace and quali pace is similar but honestly I would avoid to do all conclusion so early and if you have a look at one stint or the other one, it is not the same picture. I think Russell was struggling much more on the first stint than the second one, I think we have to avoid to create something.”
Here’s race start: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-chinese-grand-prix-piastri-leads-from-pole-as-norris-jumps-russell.1827367910236875162
Here’s information on Ferrari DQ
Here’s how F1 Chinese GP panned out
