What really happened with Ferrari’s “joke” team orders saga

Ferrari had a day to forget at Formula 1's Chinese Grand Prix with a double disqualification for Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, but fake team order drama further added to team boss Fred Vasseur's misery.

Hamilton and Leclerc were running fourth and fifth respectively after their pitstops around lap 20 when fans were first alerted to team orders being in play, and the seven-time world champion appearing not best pleased by them.

"We are swapping cars in Turn 14," Hamilton's race engineer Riccardo Adami instructed him, with the Briton's reply: "When he's closer, yeah."

It was the first message picked up by the world feed, with broadcasters then speculating Hamilton was not too keen on letting his team-mate past. That was followed by Adami's "we will swap this lap", with Hamilton's curt reply: "I'll tell you when we swap" presented on the broadcast just as the Briton let his team-mate through.

That further caused a stir in tifosi living rooms, especially with Leclerc nursing a broken front wing, even though it soon proved to be the correct decision. Hamilton continued to struggle for pace and eventually pitted again to finish well behind the Monegasque, before technical infractions caused both drivers to be thrown out of the results.

Unbeknownst to the TV audience though, it was Hamilton himself who first suggested swapping places. "I think I’m going to let Charles go, because I’m struggling," he said. But that radio message, a crucial piece of missing context that would have prevented TV commentators from speculating, never made it onto the broadcast.

In his media debrief, Vasseur was not happy with what he felt was rights holder FOM manufacturing drama around his team, one week on from Hamilton's conversations with Adami also being blown out of proportion.

Frederic Vasseur, Team Principal and General Manager, Scuderia Ferrari

Photo by: Ferrari

“I think this is a joke from FOM, because the first call came from Lewis,” he told reporters afterwards. “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 question. I will discuss with them.”

Autosport understands F1 has since reached out to Vasseur to have that conversation, explaining that its omission of Hamilton's first message was not a deliberate decision to mislead viewers, but an oversight.

An F1 spokesperson confirmed: “There was absolutely no intention of presenting a misleading narrative regarding the Ferrari team radio. Due to other situations developing during the race, the message from Lewis was not played but this was not intentional.”

Speaking about how Hamilton's adaption to Ferrari has been portrayed, Vasseur said: "[The media] made a huge mess last week on the messages between the engineer and Lewis. Honestly, when Lewis came back to the briefing room he said to this engineer 'good job'.

"But because they were discussing about how to use K1 and he said, 'Don't speak when I am in the fight', I had tons of questions.

"It's Lewis who asked to swap. I'm not even sure that you will have this kind of situation 10 times during the season in other teams. From the pitwall we really appreciated the call from Lewis to say, 'Guys, I'm losing the pace, I'm keen to swap.' The collaboration between the two guys is mega, I can't complain a single second about something."

Hamilton opened his Ferrari account with a first sprint pole on Friday, followed by a dominant sprint race win on Saturday morning.