JUST IN : Hamilton Caught in Ferrari Mix-Up After Late Team Orders in BAKU… Read more
Hamilton Caught in Ferrari Mix-Up After Late Team Orders in Baku
Lewis Hamilton’s tough start to life as a Ferrari driver continued in Azerbaijan, where a late mix-up over team orders left the seven-time world champion and his teammate Charles Leclerc finishing a lowly eighth and ninth.
Hamilton, who once dominated Formula 1 with McLaren and Mercedes, has found himself in unfamiliar territory since switching to Maranello at the beginning of 2025. Instead of fighting for podiums or victories, the Briton has spent much of his first season in red battling for modest points. The Azerbaijan Grand Prix was no exception.
After qualifying only 12th at the Baku City Circuit, Hamilton fought his way up to eighth place by the chequered flag. Though it was a step forward from where he started, it hardly represented the kind of success he grew used to earlier in his career. Speaking afterwards, the 40-year-old acknowledged the reality of his situation: “I’m happy I moved forwards from 12th,” he said, though the words carried a sombre undertone given how high his standards once were.
Ferrari’s race itself was largely uneventful. Both Hamilton and Leclerc spent much of the afternoon running in the midfield, without the pace to challenge the frontrunners. However, the late drama came when Ferrari attempted to orchestrate a position swap between their drivers.
On lap 43 of the 51-lap race, Leclerc ceded his place to Hamilton. The team had identified that Hamilton, running on the faster medium tyres, had better pace and might stand a chance of chasing down Lando Norris just up the road. For several laps, Hamilton pressed forward, but despite his efforts, he couldn’t make significant inroads on the McLaren.
With Norris proving out of reach, Ferrari instructed Hamilton to give the place back to Leclerc before the finish. Race engineer Riccardo Adami relayed the order with blunt clarity: “Let Charles by, he’s one and a half [seconds] behind you… this is the last lap. Behind is [Isack] Hadjar two seconds, Charles 1.5 behind, let him by.”
But the message came far too late. With just a handful of corners left, Hamilton didn’t have enough track left to properly slow down and hand back the position. Afterwards, he admitted he had been fully focused on chasing Norris and simply reacted too late. “At the end I got the message really late on, and I was zoned in on the car in front. Even though there was like a 0.0001 percent chance of passing, I was still hopeful. I did lift on the straight and even braked, but Charles missed it by about four tenths. That was a misjudgment by myself. I’ll apologise to Charles. At the end of the day, that’s eighth and ninth,” Hamilton explained.
To his credit, Leclerc brushed off the mishap, refusing to make it an issue. “I really don’t care. For an eighth place, I don’t think this should be the talking point,” he said calmly, underlining the low stakes of the mix-up.
Still, the incident summed up Ferrari’s struggles in 2025—lacking pace, struggling to execute strategy, and watching their star new signing battle for scraps rather than silverware. For Hamilton, once the sport’s most consistent race winner, Azerbaijan offered another sobering reminder of the long road ahead to return Ferrari to the top.
About The Author
