Ferrari’s team orders blow up over P8 as Hamilton keeps the place, Leclerc fumes
Ferrari wanted a neat swap. They got a radio row and a headache.
Lewis Hamilton was asked to hand eighth place back to Charles Leclerc on the final dash to the flag in Baku. He didn’t. Leclerc called it “stupid” and “not fair” on the radio. Hamilton apologised afterwards, saying he’d misjudged where the finish line actually was. And from the pit wall? Team boss Fred Vasseur put it down to a simple misunderstanding. Simple, it wasn’t.
Here’s what triggered it. Earlier, Ferrari had switched the order to let Hamilton attack the pack ahead — Lando Norris, Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson — on fresher tyres. When he couldn’t make it through, the call came to give the place back. Hamilton slowed, moved off the racing line, checked his mirrors… then still beat Leclerc to the line by four tenths.
Leclerc’s response over the radio dripped with sarcasm: “It’s for an eighth place, so… it’s OK. He can enjoy that P8.” Then the real sting: “It’s just stupid because it’s not fair.”
Hamilton, for his part, was contrite later on, telling Leclerc it was an error. Vasseur backed that version, insisting this wasn’t gamesmanship from his seven-time champion but a misjudgement at the timing line. “The situation was clear for us,” Vasseur said. “Lewis had a tyre advantage and we asked Charles to let him go to try to overtake Lawson and Tsunoda or Norris. We asked to swap back and it looks like Lewis had a misjudgement on the position of the start and finish line.” Vasseur also noted Leclerc was wrestling with energy recovery troubles, hardly ideal when you’re drag racing to the flag.
That’s the Ferrari line. Jacques Villeneuve isn’t buying the premise. Speaking after the race, the 1997 world champion said Hamilton “played it really well,” arguing the original order to move Leclerc aside was unnecessary in the first place. In his view, Hamilton had enough pace on fresh rubber that the overtake would have come without intervention. And if you believe that, you can understand why Hamilton might not have been in a rush to hit the brakes for a swap-back — even if he insists it was a genuine mistake.
What’s not in dispute is the cost. Eighth versus ninth isn’t a podium bust-up, but it’s still a couple of points — and points Ferrari could have used. The team left Azerbaijan slipping to third in the Constructors’ standings behind Mercedes, a swing amplified by George Russell’s second place and Kimi Antonelli’s fourth. When your rivals bank a haul like that, self-inflicted scrapes over minor positions land heavier.
The other unavoidable subtext: this is Hamilton and Leclerc, Ferrari’s marquee pairing. One a newly arrived legend, the other the long-time standard-bearer in red. You don’t need a tabloid lens to see why even small moments matter between them. Team orders are always a trust exercise; the golden rule is if you swap, you swap back. Ferrari tried. They missed.
Is this a crisis? Not yet. But it is a tell. Ferrari can ill afford muddled execution or mixed messages when the margins at the front are razor-thin. And, yes, being forced to litigate eighth place over the radio isn’t the image the Scuderia wants with a title fight on its mood board.
Villeneuve was more blunt, calling Ferrari “completely lost right now,” before pivoting to the obvious horizon: 2026. With a major regulations reset coming on chassis and power units, there’s a widely held belief that the competitive order could be shuffled. Villeneuve figures Maranello may already be leaning into that future. “It could be a perfect beginning for Ferrari next season,” he said. Translation: don’t expect panic over every point in 2025 if they think the bigger prize is a year away.
Still, races are won and lost in the small print. If the official version is correct and Hamilton simply misjudged the line, that’s a process issue Ferrari can iron out quickly — clearer calls, sharper reference points, no ambiguity in the cockpit. If, as some suspect, Hamilton “played it,” then the team has a different job: managing a heavyweight partnership without letting tiny flashpoints become real fractures.
Either way, the optics weren’t pretty: a red car yielding for strategy, a red car not yielding it back, and two drivers crossing the line almost side by side while the radio crackled with frustration. Eighth place shouldn’t start a civil war. But in this championship, where every crumb matters and narratives move fast, it was more than a footnote. It was a warning that Ferrari’s margins for error — political and operational — are thinner than ever.
