Tension brewing between Hamilton and race engineer? Vasseur answers

It's not been the easiest of driver-race engineer relationships, with misunderstandings taking place since the first race of the season at the Australian Grand Prix.

During the race in Miami, communications reached an all-time low with Hamilton telling Adami to 'have a tea while you're at it', after he felt Ferrari were taking too long to instruct teammate Charles Leclerc, who was ahead of him at the time, to let him by.

During the race, Hamilton found himself in P5 after his first of two stops, albeit a long was away from the top 4, Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen, having lost substantial time behind Isack Hadjar and Fernando Alonso.

As the race progressed the gap to the top placed drivers grew larger, with Hamilton inquiring as to whether his gap was of over a minute. Whilst Adami did reply, he failed to answer the British driver's question, who at that point might have been concerned with being lapped.

To the lack of an answer to his doubt, Hamilton reacted annoyed: "You’re not answering the question. It doesn’t really matter I guess, I’m just asking if I’m a minute behind or not.”

After he'd taken the checkered flag in P5 with his SF-25, Hamilton, perhaps prompted by Adami's silence, asked: “Are you upset with me or something?” A silence that remained, however.

Speaking to various media sources, including GPblog, after the race in which Hamilton placed 5th, Vasseur was asked about the potential tensions that could indeed be brewing between the Briton and 'the voice in his head during races.'

Why did Adami then no respond to Hamilton, if whether he was upset with the 7-time world champion or not?

"Because when the driver is asking something between turn 1 and turn 3 we have to wait the tunel to reply to avoid to speak with him during the corners," said Vasseur.

The Frenchman then defended the dynamics at Ferrari fiercely. "It's not that we are sleeping. It's not that we are having a beer on the pit wall. It's just because we have a section of the track where we agreed before to speak with him."

However, at the point Hamilton asked Adami if he was upset with him, the race had already come to an end.