Ex-Ferrari engineer says Schumacher never made a mistake like Hamilton's Brazil pit call

Mazzola, who was Alain Prost's engineer and later ran Ferrari's test team during the Michael Schumacher era, spoke in an exclusive interview with Fanpage.it, he also accused the seven-time world champion of making excuses for the mistake.

Late in the race, Ferrari called Hamilton in for intermediates as the rain returned. He stayed out for one more lap, spun on the approach to the pit entry and brushed the barrier with his rear wing. He started 20th and finished ninth. Afterwards he said the last update he had was that the drizzle would hold steady, as GPblog reported.

Mazzola worked at Ferrari for 22 years, from 1988 to 2009, alongside drivers including Prost, Schumacher, Nigel Mansell, Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa. It was Hamilton's explanation, more than the spin itself, that bothered him most.

"Hamilton found excuses to justify his stupidity," Mazzola told Fanpage.it. "He said he understood the rain wouldn't get worse, that he'd been given certain information. But you see it while you're driving, right?"

He did accept part of the driver's case. The pit wall can only see the straight and the stretch in front of the pit lane, he explained, while the driver is the one who knows the conditions around the whole lap. But he did not let Hamilton off: "Arrogance never pays, even when it comes from a world champion like him. Hats off to him for what he's accomplished in his career, but right now he's taking certain positions both on and off the track."

When asked whether anything similar ever happened with Schumacher, Mazzola said: "I have never seen a situation where a mistake of that kind occurred." To him the difference was trust: "If there was one thing that existed back then, both in the relationship between Alain Prost and me and between Michael Schumacher and Ross Brawn's pit wall, it was complete trust."

But trust has to run both ways, and that leaves a question: was this driver error, or a pit wall that had lost his trust? In radio that was not broadcast, covered in "Hamilton's unheard Brazil radio reveals Ferrari could not tell him where he was running", Hamilton asked race engineer Carlo Santi for his position several times without getting an answer. It also happened before. In Singapore he ignored a call to stop under a lap-39 Virtual Safety Car and finished sixth instead of a likely third.

Mazzola agreed with Fred Vasseur's tyre-pressure explanation for Hamilton's race, covered in "Vasseur reveals why Hamilton's 11-place Brazil charge came at a cost for Ferrari". "I think what Fred Vasseur said is essentially what happened," he said. He described a car that was too good early on before it lost rear grip, adding: "He even ended up being overtaken by Fernando Alonso."

He thinks Hamilton went somewhat too far in the recent row with Charles Leclerc. He compared the two drivers to Prost and Mansell at Ferrari, two cockerels in one henhouse, and said it was up to the team principal to act: "Fred Vasseur must eventually establish the rules because he's the one who has to determine what matters for Ferrari."

After the talks that followed Mexico, Vasseur told the media that "the guidelines are still the same". Las Vegas is next. Before then, Ferrari has to review how it communicates in wet conditions, and every exchange between Hamilton and Santi will be followed closely.