Ferrari left the Dutch Grand Prix without a podium despite bringing Lewis Hamilton home in fourth place and Charles Leclerc in fifth, with the race at Zandvoort also producing tense radio exchanges between the two drivers and the Maranello pit wall. Lewis Hamilton first complained that Ferrari was costing him time and later made it clear that he was unhappy with the strategy being prepared for him.
Fred Vasseur has now sought to play down the Hamilton-Leclerc tension, explaining Ferrari’s thinking during the most complicated phase of the race. The team principal insisted that the main opportunity had been lost in qualifying rather than through the strategic decision that contributed to Lewis Hamilton’s frustration over the radio.
Fred Vasseur says Ferrari’s bigger problem was qualifying
Speaking to Sky Sport F1 after the race, Fred Vasseur argued that Ferrari had enough race pace to achieve more with both cars and pointed instead to Saturday’s qualifying session as the moment that ultimately left the team with too much ground to recover.
“After the race it’s always easy to talk. I think the pace was good with both cars and we could have achieved a better result today. If we were missing something, though, I think it was more yesterday in qualifying than today,” Fred Vasseur said.
That assessment places Ferrari’s Dutch Grand Prix qualifying performance at the centre of the missed opportunity. Despite encouraging race pace, starting further back left Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc needing to recover positions before they could seriously threaten the podium battle.
Why Ferrari did not swap Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc
Fred Vasseur then explained the sequence that created the most tension within Ferrari. According to the Frenchman, the team’s execution was not flawless, while communication with Lewis Hamilton became particularly difficult because Ferrari did not want to reveal its intended strategy to rival teams listening to the radio.
“Today the execution wasn’t perfect. We had a bad start with Charles, we lost a position to Piastri; then there was another bad pit stop with Charles, and with Lewis there was a misunderstanding: we didn’t want to talk on the radio, but at that stage we expected to go to the end [with Hamilton]. We had Antonelli behind and he was struggling, so we told ourselves, ‘let’s go to the end.’”
The decision not to immediately reverse the positions between the two Ferrari drivers was therefore tied to the plan for Charles Leclerc to make another stop. From the pit wall’s perspective, allowing Lewis Hamilton through was not considered necessary if the Monegasque was going to pit anyway.
“That’s why we didn’t swap the positions, because Charles had to pit anyway. We probably could have done better, but it was also difficult to explain the situation to Lewis without revealing our plan to the others, and that then led us to make that decision.”
Vasseur defends Ferrari decision despite missed podium
The confusion inevitably attracted attention because Ferrari was fighting for the strongest possible result with both cars, but Fred Vasseur does not believe the team lost its chance of a podium specifically because it chose not to swap Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc at that stage.
Instead, the Ferrari team principal again returned to the importance of starting position. The SF-26 had already shown promising race performance during the Sprint, and Vasseur felt that the same underlying pace was present in Sunday’s Grand Prix. Ferrari’s qualifying difficulties at Zandvoort, however, had left the drivers too far from the front when the decisive phase of the weekend began.
“But I don’t think we missed out on something because of that decision,” Fred Vasseur concluded. “Probably the problem was more yesterday in qualifying, because overall I think the pace was good. It was good in the Sprint and today as well. But by finishing sixth after the first lap, we found ourselves too far back.”
Ferrari therefore leaves Zandvoort with fourth and fifth rather than the podium its race pace appeared capable of challenging for. Fred Vasseur’s assessment is clear: the radio misunderstanding and imperfect execution mattered, but the more significant damage had already been done by the team’s starting position.
