Ferrari group principal Fred Vasseur has hit again at questions over Lewis Hamilton’s kind in the course of the early a part of the 2025 F1 season.
Hamilton’s powerful begin to life at Ferrari continued on the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix because the seven-time world champion completed the place he certified in seventh and was 31 seconds behind teammate Charles Leclerc, who scored the group’s first podium of the 12 months.
Except for taking a formidable pole place and victory within the China dash race, in simply his second look for Ferrari, Hamilton is on a disappointing run of kind.
Requested how Hamilton’s kind had fallen off so ‘dramatically’, Vasseur snapped again: “It’s not dramatically. We did 5 races thus far. I do know that you just need to have the large headlines tomorrow that ‘Fred stated this’.
“However that is f****** b******t. On the finish of the day, we’re in competitors. You’ve ups and downs.
“When we have now up, we aren’t world champions. When we have now down, we aren’t nowhere. It is only a competitors.”
Hamilton has been convincingly outperformed by Leclerc, is seventh within the drivers’ championship, and already 68 factors behind chief Oscar Piastri, who claimed his third win in 5 races in Jeddah.
“I am unsure that you just draw the identical conclusion with Max final week when he was seventh. It’s like it’s. The competitors is tight,” Vasseur stated.
“You’ve 10 vehicles and a few tenths. Take a look at Max. He gained in Japan. He completed 30 seconds behind Piastri in Bahrain, and in Saudi Arabia he was P2 and had pole place.
“We simply have to remain calm. You are able to do no matter you need. I do not need to fear for you. Not less than for us as a group, we have now to work step-by-step.
“I believe it paid off final 12 months to do hundredths of seconds and hundredths of seconds and we have to hold the identical strategy.
“I’ll by no means be the man who says we’re world champions or we’re nowhere. We’re a group. We’re struggling on the weekend. We’ve good outcomes on the weekend. It is simply that we have now to enhance step-by-step and keep calm.”
Fred Vasseur defended Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton braced for ‘painful’ season
Hamilton described his race in Saudi Arabia as “horrible” and conceded the 2025 season is trying “painful”.
“Nothing optimistic to take from at present,” Hamilton stated, “other than Charles on the rostrum, which is nice for the group.
“It was horrible, not fulfilling in any respect. I used to be simply sliding round. It is fairly unhealthy.
“I do not understand how for much longer I am going to battle for but it surely’s undoubtedly painful. Simply going to attempt to enhance from week to week.
“In the mean time there isn’t any repair so that is how it should be for the remainder or the 12 months. It is going to be painful.
“In qualifying it is me extracting efficiency and within the race I attempted every thing and the automobile simply did not need to go any faster.”
Vasseur insisted Hamilton can have Ferrari’s full help.
“I might be 2000 per cent behind him,” he added. “I’ll give him help and we’ll begin from tomorrow morning to attempt to discover options and causes and to work on it early within the morning.
“However actually, I’m not too frightened. You probably have a glance on what he did in China or what he did within the race in Bahrain final week and even on the primary a part of the session on this weekend, the potential is there for certain.
“We simply have to regulate the steadiness as a result of we’re, collectively, Lewis and us, we’re battling the steadiness of his automobile and [how] he’s working the tyres.
“It is a sort of damaging spot however I believe the potential of the automobile is there and we’ll attempt to resolve that.”
