Vasseur explains the details of the driver swap between Hamilton and Leclerc in Maimi

16:57, 08 May

byOlly Darcy

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur has delved into the reasoning behind the driver swap that Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc went through at the Miami Grand Prix.

During Sunday's Grand Prix in the Sunshine State, Hamilton and Leclerc switched positions, with the Brit being allowed through to try and gain more positions, showing a bit more pace than his teammate.

However, he could not catch up to Kimi Antonelli, the man who replaced the seven-time world champion at Mercedes, meaning the 40-year-old was asked to let Leclerc back through once again, with some angry words exchanged over the radio after he was told to give the place back to his teammate.

Leclerc and Hamilton could only finish in P7 and P8, respectively, at the Miami Grand Prix

Vasseur and Ferrari "did what we had to do"

In the Miami paddock after the Grand Prix, many questions about the driver swap and the resulting team radio were directed towards Vasseur, with the Frenchman describing the decision-making on the pit wall.

"Because it's the policy of the deal if you ask them to swap," the 56-year-old started when asked why the drivers swapped positions a second time.

"If you don't ask them to swap, they give you nothing. If you ask them to swap, it's because you see that the second car is faster than the first car at this stage of the race. We try to catch up to the guy who's in front [Antonelli], and if we don't do it, we swap back to respect the initial position.

"At that stage of the race, it was clear that we would not be able to find a delay with Lewis, and we accepted the swap," continued Vasseur.

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There was also a question about the team radio messages that came during the race, with it seeming like Hamilton did not hear the request to swap back positions. However, Vasseur dismissed that straight away.

"The radio transmission, first, you have to understand that it's formed with managing the delay. It means that sometimes we are asking them something, and you hear it live half a lap later or one lap later. I already had the case in the past. Then, we have tons of information that we are discussing with them about the car, the setup of the car, and so on.

"It's not always easy to ask them to do it before turn 11 or turn 17. But honestly, I think that we did what we had to do. You can always argue that it would have been better to do it half a lap before or half a lap later, but honestly, we did it," Vasseur concluded.

This article was written in collaboration with Marnik Kok