Imagine for a moment that, in Singapore, it had been Ferrari’s pit wall that left Lewis Hamilton out on track on worn-out Soft tyres. Would Fred Vasseur have shown the same urgency in publicly clarifying where the responsibility lay? Or would the explanation have centred on unusual circumstances, strategic assessments, data that needed analysing and the usual stream of justifications?
We cannot know how that hypothetical situation would have unfolded. What we do know is what actually happened. Ferrari called Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton into the pits during the Virtual Safety Car for a double stop, but the British driver continued. It was the wrong decision and it proved extremely costly: worn tyres, three lost positions and a podium that had appeared secure slipping away.
Lewis Hamilton accepted responsibility without excuses
Lewis Hamilton could have produced a long list of mitigating circumstances. Instead, the seven-time world champion did something that Ferrari, particularly at management level, could study carefully: he apologised and accepted responsibility for the mistake.
There was no attempt to find somebody else to blame. There was no explanation about complicated circumstances, misunderstood instructions or data that still needed to be analysed. He made the wrong call and accepted that it was his error. Ferrari’s own account of how Lewis Hamilton accepted responsibility for the Singapore strategy mistake made that position clear.
It is an approach from which Ferrari’s management could learn. For years, whenever things have gone badly at Maranello, explanations, justifications and mitigating factors have rarely been in short supply. Tyres, brakes, setups, temperatures and track conditions can all become part of the explanation.
Often, those explanations are completely legitimate. Every technical problem does have a cause and every disappointment can have circumstances that help explain it. The danger is that, after repeatedly explaining why something went wrong, attention can drift away from a more important question: who is responsible for the fact that things continue to go wrong?
Ferrari has spoken about accountability before
In November 2023, John Elkann told the BBC that Ferrari had lacked a culture of accountability and identified Fred Vasseur as the man tasked with restoring it. It was an admirable objective.
Yet two years later, during another disappointing season, the Ferrari president publicly called on Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton to speak less and drive better. That intervention was particularly striking because the Monegasque driver had just retired from a race following an accident caused by others.
The implication seemed to be that the problem for a Ferrari unable to fight for the World Championship was somehow connected to how much its drivers were saying publicly. But the drivers, after all, are not the people who design the cars.
Fred Vasseur has admitted mistakes during his time in charge, and it would be unfair to claim otherwise. However, when criticism turns towards the team’s work, there is often an explanation ready to defend a decision, a strategy or a result. His recent defence of Ferrari’s decisions around Lewis Hamilton’s Singapore strategy was another example of how quickly the discussion can move towards explaining the circumstances behind a result.
When responsibility becomes too collective
When those explanations are no longer enough, another target can emerge: the media.
Fred Vasseur has argued that negative reports can have enormous consequences for Ferrari’s performance because of the effect they have on the approximately 1,500 people working for the team. It is understandable that persistent rumours or negative reporting can create discomfort inside an organisation.
It is rather harder to accept the idea that journalists can somehow make the SF-26 lose aerodynamic load, produce a strategy error or use its tyres too aggressively.
Sarcasm aside, anyone running a Formula 1 team must also answer for mistakes they did not personally make. Leadership means being responsible for the people you select, the organisation you build, the decisions made within that structure and, most importantly, the results it produces.
Otherwise, the concept of collective responsibility can become extremely convenient: everybody is responsible, which ultimately means nobody is responsible.
Singapore showed the difference clearly
Lewis Hamilton did not recover his lost Singapore podium by apologising to Ferrari and its supporters. Taking responsibility did not return the three positions he lost after remaining on track, and it did not change the final result.
What it did achieve was to prevent an already difficult Sunday from developing into another public argument or another search for somebody else to blame. The sequence that cost Ferrari the podium, including why Lewis Hamilton remained on track during the decisive VSC period, was already complicated enough without adding a dispute over responsibility afterwards.
The strategic consequences can also be placed alongside Ferrari’s wider pit-stop and strategy data, but the central point here is not statistical. It is cultural.
Ferrari should apply the accountability it keeps demanding
John Elkann and Fred Vasseur could take something from Lewis Hamilton’s response. Ferrari has spoken about creating a culture of accountability for years. It would be useful to see that principle applied as naturally as it is invoked.
There is nothing wrong with explaining why a technical problem occurred or why a strategic decision failed. Formula 1 is extraordinarily complex, and reducing every setback to a single person’s mistake would be simplistic. But explanations should not become a substitute for responsibility.
Lewis Hamilton made a costly mistake in Singapore and acknowledged it. No diversion, no search for a scapegoat and no attempt to turn the discussion towards somebody else. That does not erase the error, but it does offer Ferrari an example of how accountability can look in practice.
Because if every disappointing result is followed by another explanation, another justification and another external factor, eventually there will be nobody left to blame except perhaps the people whose greatest offence is continuing to support the Prancing Horse.
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