Lewis Hamilton says he will apologize to Charles Leclerc for failing to give a position back to his teammate at the end of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Ferrari split strategies with its two cars on Sunday, with Hamilton starting on the hard compound from 12th and Leclerc on the medium from 10th. That meant in the second half of the race, Hamilton was on the quicker medium tire, and when he caught Leclerc – who was stuck at the back of a train of cars including Liam Lawson, Yuki Tsunoda and Lando Norris – Ferrari imposed team orders to let Hamilton try and find a way past those ahead.
When Hamilton failed to do so, the instruction was given in the closing stages to swap positions once again, but despite the seven-time world champion slowing significantly on the pit straight, he says he didn’t time the move correctly as he still crossed the line before Leclerc overtook him.
“Obviously I was quicker, but Charles was gracious to let me by,” Hamilton said. “At the end I got the message really late on it, and I was like zoned in on the car in front of me, even though there was like 0.001 percent chance of passing, I was still hopeful, maybe.
“Basically I did lift on the straight and did actually brake, but he missed it by like four tenths, so it was just a misjudgment from myself. So I’ll apologize to Charles, because at the end of the day it’s eighth and ninth, but it won’t happen again.
“There was never a thought that we were going to be in that position, so we didn’t talk about it before.”
Leclerc himself downplayed the incident, but says it would be more problematic if the two drivers had been fighting for more significant points.
“I think it was very clear, but I really don’t care for an eighth place at the end,” Leclerc said. “I don’t think that this should be the talking point. Unfortunately, we have been very slow all weekend and that’s where we should focus on. P8 or P9, or P9 or P8 is not something that really interests me, so it’s fine.
“There are rules that we know we’ve got to work with and maybe those rules were not respected, but again, P8/P9, P9/P8, that’s small. Going forward, obviously if we are fighting for sexier positions, which I hope it will be the case, then I hope that we will work in a different way, but on a day like that, honestly, I don’t really mind.”
The weekend was a frustrating one for Ferrari having looked quick throughout practice, but Hamilton – who topped FP2 – says his race result was a byproduct of a poor qualifying and there were clear signs of progress on his side of the garage.
“It’s definitely not where we want to be, obviously a disappointing result at the end of the day, but I did go forwards from 12th, which was positive. I had a good start, and I think my pace was generally good, I mean I was flat out, I was definitely much better, much happier in the car.
“It was difficult to close up on the cars ahead, they were very fast. Clearly qualifying is very important, and we missed out on that. If you look at the Williams, where they qualified and finished there. But there’s lots of positives to take from it, and definitely bits to draw from the weekend, which I’ll try and take into the next.”