Ferrari laboured in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix with neither Charles Leclerc nor Lewis Hamilton able to make much headway after their disappointing qualifying results
Lewis Hamilton said sorry to his Ferrari team-mate after he failed to follow the instruction to swap positions before the chequered flag at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The seven-time champion had been permitted to overtake Charles Leclerc earlier in the contest but couldn’t make any additional headway.
So the call came on the final lap for Hamilton to step aside and let Leclerc reach the finishing line ahead of him. The Briton was informed by race engineer Riccardo Adami that Leclerc was 1.5 seconds behind him, with Isack Hadjar two seconds further back in the Racing Bulls car.
Onboard footage revealed Hamilton did ease off before he reached the line, but he got his timing wrong and ended up crossing the line before his team-mate did. That meant Hamilton completed the race eighth, one place and two points better off than Leclerc.
Quizzed about it after the race, the Briton explained how he had got it wrong. He said: “Firstly, obviously I was quicker [earlier on], but Charles was gracious to let me by. At the end, I got the message really late on.
“I was zoned in on the car in front of me, even though there was like a 0.0001 per cent chance of passing, and I was still hopeful, maybe. Basically, I did lift on the straight and did actually brake, but I missed it by like four tenths… so I apologise to Charles. At the end of the day, it’s eighth and ninth.”
Leclerc concurred with that final observation and didn’t appear particularly troubled by it – although he suggested he would have been far more frustrated had it concerned a more crucial finishing spot higher up the order. The Monegasque said: “For a p8 or a p9, it’s not going to be a big talking point.
READ MORE: The unexpected twist in Charles Leclerc’s journey home from Azerbaijan Grand Prix
“I don’t really mind. Obviously, these are things that we agree between us and the general rules of how we want to work whenever there is a swap, but it didn’t happen. But that’s okay, it’s not like I would have been a lot happier being P8.”
Their joint haul of six points represented one of Ferrari’s poorest returns of the entire campaign. However, it proved sufficient to maintain their constructors’ championship hopes for a further fortnight, thanks to a challenging weekend for frontrunners McLaren who witnessed Lando Norris claim seventh place whilst Oscar Piastri suffered a first-lap retirement.
Sky Sports launches discounted Formula 1 package
£43
£35
Sky
Get Sky Sports here
Formula 1 fans can watch every practice, qualifying and race live with Sky’s new Essential TV and Sky Sports bundle in a new deal that saves £192.
As well as Sky Sports access, this includes more than 100 TV channels and free subscriptions to Netflix and Discovery+.
Max Verstappen won the race, his fourth Grand Prix victory of the season and second in a row. He is now 69 points adrift of championship leader Piastri, though he refuses to get too excited about the prospect of challenging for the title with only seven rounds remaining.
The Red Bull driver said: “It’s seven races to go, and it’s still 69 points. It’s a lot. Basically, everything needs to go perfectly from my side, and then I need a bit of [bad] luck from their side [McLaren] as well. So, it’s still very tough.”