Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc reveal Ferrari turmoil through private radio and post-Spanish GP reactions. Unheard team radio and Leclerc’s post-race comments highlight growing frustration inside Ferrari..

Lewis Hamilton Frustrated After Spanish Grand Prix as Ferrari Strategy and Tyre Issues Derail Promising Start

Lewis Hamilton endured another frustrating weekend with Ferrari, finishing sixth in the 2025 Barcelona Grand Prix despite starting from his highest grid position of the season. The seven-time Formula 1 world champion, who qualified fifth, had initially looked poised for a stronger result, but a combination of tyre degradation, intra-team strategy, and late-race setbacks ultimately cost him a top-five finish.

At the start, Hamilton made a promising move into fourth position, showcasing strong early pace. However, his momentum began to fade as his soft tyres quickly degraded, leaving him vulnerable to pressure from teammate Charles Leclerc. Ferrari made the call to swap positions between their drivers, a decision reportedly influenced by Leclerc’s pre-race concerns about tyre longevity and the impact of running in dirty air. The Monegasque had already compromised his qualifying setup in favour of race pace and was vocal over team radio about the need to avoid getting stuck behind Hamilton.

While a late-race Safety Car triggered by Andrea Kimi Antonelli gave Hamilton a temporary boost, allowing him to gain a couple of positions, it was short-lived. Nico Hülkenberg managed to overtake the Ferrari driver shortly after the restart, demoting Hamilton back to sixth and sealing the final place in the top five.

Post-race, Hamilton’s private radio messages to his engineer Riccardo Adami appeared to align with Leclerc’s own frustrations, which had been expressed during the post-race cool-down room chat. Charles Leclerc had remarked to McLaren’s Oscar Piastri that the car’s balance had deteriorated significantly throughout the race, describing the changes as “unbelievable” and difficult to understand. Hamilton, for his part, had expressed ongoing dissatisfaction with the balance of his SF-25 throughout the race, particularly during the middle stints, mirroring Charles Leclerc’s experience.

Earlier in the race, Hamilton made it clear to his team that he was unable to close in on George Russell due to a lack of grip from the soft compound tyres. His complaints intensified in the laps leading up to the Safety Car, where he reported a significant loss of rear-end stability. Following the race, he repeated those observations to Riccardo Adami, reinforcing the sense of a broader issue affecting both Ferraris.

Despite running ahead of the Monegasque during qualifying at the Circuit de Catalunya, Lewis Hamilton was ultimately outpaced by his teammate during the 66-lap contest. The result leaves him 23 points behind Leclerc in the Drivers’ Championship standings, raising questions about his ability to consistently extract performance from the SF-25.

Ferrari team principal Frédéric Vasseur addressed Lewis Hamilton’s difficulties in a post-race interview with Sky Sports. He acknowledged that Lewis Hamilton had encountered a problem on the car during the final stint, prior to the deployment of the Safety Car. While he did not specify the nature of the issue, the French manager dismissed any suggestion of controversy, emphasizing that Hamilton had spent a large portion of the race ahead of George Russell and that the overall result did not reflect the full picture of the Briton’s performance.

The Frenchman stated that if people wanted to create a narrative of drama, they could, but insisted it wasn’t justified. He underlined that Hamilton had driven around 70% of the race in front of his former Mercedes teammate and reiterated that the problem only surfaced late in the race.

Former Formula 1 world champion Nico Rosberg also weighed in on the team orders, suggesting that Ferrari had placed Lewis Hamilton in a “horrible” situation by requiring him to give way to Leclerc in the early phases of the Grand Prix. According to Rosberg, such decisions can damage a driver’s confidence and complicate intra-team dynamics, especially for a driver still settling into a new team environment.

Lewis Hamilton’s struggles in Spain reflect a broader pattern of inconsistency that has plagued his debut season at Ferrari. With the Maranello team still working to understand the nuances of its 2025 car, and a major regulation change on the horizon in 2026, the pressure is mounting for both the Italian side and the Briton to deliver more cohesive performances in the races ahead.