Fred Vasseur hits back at media questions over Lewis Hamilton Ferrari blunder

Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur has hit back at media questioning of Lewis Hamilton's botched strategy in the Singapore Grand Prix.

Hamilton was the outlier among the leading drivers in starting on the medium tyres in a bid to create some strategic variance to Max Verstappen on pole, with Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc taking the softs as well.

However, by Lap 18, Ferrari abandoned the strategy as the soft emerged as the best race tyre, with Hamilton pitting for used soft tyres, and was faced with 44 laps on the same tyres. 

After other cars had completed their pit-stops, Hamilton had cycled back to third, but on Lap 40, the virtual safety car was called for Lance Stroll's Aston Martin.

Leclerc and Kimi Antonelli pitted, but Hamilton did not, and was quickly passed by Leclerc on the restart as his tyres fell off the cliff due to wear.

Ultimately, Hamilton decided to tough out the one-stop, but slipped to sixth as Antonelli, Lando Norris, and Oscar Piastri all sliced past the Briton, who finished a distant sixth.

Post-race, Hamilton issued an apology to Ferrari and took responsibility for the decision to attempt the one-stop, having also missed the pit-entry when told to pit under the VSC.

In his traditional post-race media briefing, Vasseur appeared to hit back at the line of questioning as the assembled journalists then tried to clarify whether Hamilton had not followed a further instruction to pit once he was told he was "six laps" short of making the one-stopper work before the tyres fell away. 

Vasseur's reference to whether McLaren had received a line of questioning on Saturday followed the Sprint crash between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

The transcript of the back-and-forth is below. 

Vasseur: Did you ask so many questions to McLaren yesterday?

Media: Yes, we did. 

Vasseur: We had P2-P3 on track...

Media: I'm just trying to establish what happened.

Vasseur: It was very clear. We were P2-P3 on track and we called two cars: 'Guys, you pit under the VSC, and one of my guys said: 'No, I prefer to stay on track and I missed the pit-entry'.' Don't blame the team.

Media: I am not blaming the team. What I was going to ask was, after [the VSC call], was there a subsequent call after that to definitively stop?

Vasseur: We were not sure to be able to go to the end. 

Media: But did he actually get called and decide not to again?

Vasseur: No, no, no, no. We were just monitoring. 

The article continues below. 

Vasseur explains Ferrari decision

Explaining the decision to split strategies at the start, Vasseur explained of the added complication of a wet Sprint race and how this impacted calculations. 

"The strategy at first with the tyre choice was difficult; we did FP1 with hards as everybody, and we were all blind between medium and softs," he said.

"It is why on the grid you had a 50-50 [split], and we took the decision to split the cars because it was a good approach to try and fight with Max - but the medium was poor compared to the soft on all cars, and we decided quite early to change the direction [with Hamilton]. 

"We had two options from the beginning: a two-stop or a one-stop, because we had no clue about degradation, and this is kind of the weekend with the Sprint where it can be mega safe to do a long stint on the mediums or softs and you have a good read of the tyres, but when the Sprint is wet, it is much more difficult.

"So everybody was in a corner, but we acted very well, the strategy was good, and then when we asked them to swap, they swapped very quickly, until the VSC.

"We asked him to pit, it was... don't blame the team, guys. Clearly on the radio, he said: 'I apologise, I let you down, it was my call.'

"There was a clear message, and the driver apologised that he let the team down."