Hamilton and Leclerc radio messages expose deeper communication problem at Ferrari (TRANSCRIPTS)

Ferrari have addressed several major weaknesses in recent seasons, but one Achilles heel continues to prove stubborn. The Sao Paulo Grand Prix was a reminder of the faltering communication between the pit wall and the drivers. Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton lost their tempers several times during the race because their engineers failed to give them the information they needed.

The quality of communication between a driver and their race engineer is not exposed in a dry Grand Prix when the driver is comfortably circulating in the lead. Communication and the engineers’ work are best judged in changeable conditions, when the pit wall needs to react quickly, anticipate developments and relay the latest information to the drivers at a time when even the race leader has to stay alert.

With Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton starting deep in the field, this was a genuine stress test for Ferrari and an important examination of whether their long-standing communication shortcomings had been addressed. As both radio channels demonstrated, Maranello still have significant room for improvement.

Both drivers complained about communication, not just Hamilton. On several occasions, Charles Leclerc had to press for answers to his questions.

Lap 6
Bozzi: When you can, diff mid plus one.
Leclerc: If I don’t do something, don’t remind me 10 times, please. Thank you!

Lap 16 (after Hamilton’s stop for slicks)
Leclerc: How is it?
Bozzi: It’s okay. Just pit lane exit tricky, but then it’s fast. 10-4 as well. Turns 1, 2, 3 is difficult though. He lost 2 seconds now.
Leclerc: Has the laptime been faster?
Bozzi: Yes, he’s faster still.
Leclerc: What? Who is faster?
Bozzi: Box, Charles, box. Will be same flap.
Leclerc: Freaking hell. I’m asking simple questions. It would be nice to have simple answers, box.
Bozzi: Copy, Charles, copy.

Lap 25
Leclerc: Did you set the dry front flap?
Bozzi: White nine, position six.

Lap 26
Leclerc: And again, simple question, please answer. Did you put the same flap for the dry?
Bozzi: Yes, same flap. Same flap.
Leclerc: I’ve asked for dry. Because it’s super pointy.
Bozzi: I did not add flap, so it’s same flap as on the inters, but we see the rears are still cold and causing the oversteer. So I did not add any flap.

What do you mean you don’t know?

Hamilton’s radio was busy during the opening stint on intermediates. The British driver regularly updated his engineer on the condition of his rear tyres, which were overheating badly. A set-up geared towards faster tyre warm-up had helped him on the opening lap, but he was paying the price on a drying track. As he put it, the tyres were starting to feel more like balloons.

That prompted a discussion about the best time to switch to slicks. Hamilton’s side of the garage handled this phase of the race well. The pit stop proved to be perfectly timed. Apart from one moment, Hamilton could not complain about a lack of prompt answers to his questions either.

Lap 9
Hamilton: This overheating is insane.
Hamilton: It’s not far from being slicks, mate. Still greasy, but it’s drying up.
Hamilton: I’m just falling behind at this rate.

Lap 10
Hamilton: Are you guys listening? I’m falling behind. What position am I fricking falling back to?
Santi: You are P13. P13. We copy you.

Hamilton: I want to come in soon for some tyres, slick tyres.
Santi: Understood
Hamilton: Can I come in now or not?
Santi: Negative, negative. We are not in the crossover yet. We are monitoring.

Hamilton’s next pit stop came at the end of lap 38. This time, his race engineer’s handling of the situation was less than ideal. Hamilton had no idea where he stood in the race, who he was fighting or how Lando Norris had managed to pass him.

Lap 38
Santi: Opposite Hulkenberg box, opposite Hulkenberg.
Santi: And flap. Tell me the flap.
Hamilton: Yeah, plus, uh, plus two.

Lap 39 (at the pit exit)
Santi: Out lap critical. Out lap critical.
Santi: Mode race. We are racing Norris.
Hamilton: Ah, damn guys. I’ve lost a position to him…
Santi: Mode race.

Hamilton was left wondering what had actually happened at the pit exit and how Norris could have passed him. Santi had forgotten to mention a crucial detail: he was not racing Norris for position, but trying to avoid being lapped.

Hamilton: I mean, what’s happening, man? I don’t know. Am I… Where am I?
Santi: I’ll let you know.

On this occasion, Santi was unable to look at the live timing and tell Hamilton what was happening, and that Norris ahead of him was a full lap in front.

Lap 40
Hamilton: What do you mean you don’t know? Why is Norris ahead of me? We are lapped?
Santi: Yes, we are lapped.
Santi (after a pause): So we are trying to undercut Hulkenberg and closing on Russell. We are fighting P7. Norris didn’t stop yet. He’s the race leader.

Distrust laid bare: Both ignored the call to pit, but with different results

Another pit wall error came on lap 47, this time on the other side of the garage. Charles Leclerc was told to pit for fresh slicks, despite being faster than his direct rivals on his old tyres. The Monegasque ignored the instruction and took charge of his own strategy.

Lap 47
Bozzi: And box Charles box for soft.
Leclerc: Why? Why? The pace seems to be good. I don’t think tyres are degrading too much. I’ll stay out one more lap.

On the following lap, he urged his engineer to get a handle on the situation, check the lap times and use those to judge whether a stop was really necessary. It eventually dawned on Bozzi that Leclerc was faster than his direct rivals and that pitting would be counterproductive.

Lap 48
Leclerc: Who are the cars we are fighting with and what are their times?
Bozzi: We’re fighting Hulkenberg and Lindblad doing 15.8s and 15.3s. (Leclerc was a second faster on the same lap)
Bozzi: We stay out.
Leclerc: Copy. Thank you. Stay out.

A lack of trust in the pit wall’s decisions also surfaced on the other side of the garage. Like Leclerc, Hamilton ignored a call to pit. Yet two identical decisions produced very different outcomes. Leclerc saved himself a pit stop, while Hamilton lost more than 20 seconds because he did not come in when his engineer told him to.

Lap 55
Santi: There are [reporting?] some drops in one.
Hamilton: Is it going to rain?
Santi: We expect rain in six laps.

Lap 56
Santi: Pace is very good. You are closing 1 second per lap with the guys in front.

Lap 57
Hamilton: This tyre feels terrible.
Santi: We expect this level of rain for four laps. Pace is very good.

Lap 59
Santi: Tell us what the conditions are like on track.

Lap 60
Hamilton: It’s okay right now. It starts to come down more?
Santi (talking over Hamilton): Check [last toggle]? You are catching Lawson.

Lap 61
Santi: Box, box. Box, box. Box for inter.

Lap 62
Hamilton: Shit! I’ve missed the pit entry.

Lap 63 (after a spin and leaving the pits)
Hamilton: Oh man, I did– I did– You didn’t say it was raining. I just, I thought I could keep going. I was fine on track.
Hamilton: Where am I now?
Santi: I don’t know.
Santi: Norris… We have to let Norris through.
Santi: We are P9. We are racing the car behind.

Lap 66
Hamilton: What? Where is everyone?
Santi: You are P9.
Hamilton: I know I’m P9. Where is everyone?
Santi: Charles is P8 is 25 seconds ahead.

Lap 70
Santi (at the start of the lap): Last lap. Last lap.
Hamilton (at the end of the lap): Do I still keep going or not?
Santi: No, it’s a checkered flag and you are lapped.

We cannot, however, fault Carlo Santi for failing to call Lewis Hamilton into the pits in time. It is important to remember that the radio on F1 TV is delayed by five to seven seconds relative to the pictures. The seven-time world champion had enough time to react.

The onboard footage of his previous pit stop (above), when he was supposed to do the opposite of Hülkenberg, demonstrates that. His engineer gave him the instruction at almost the same point on the circuit, and he made it in without any trouble.

What we can criticise Santi for is not doing enough to keep his driver updated on the weather. If Hamilton was told on lap 55 that rain would not arrive for another six laps, only for his engineer to tell him on lap 57 that the rain would remain at its current intensity for the next four laps (meaning it was already raining, rather than starting in six laps as originally claimed), that can hardly be called clear communication. Hamilton even asked whether the rain would get heavier, but received no answer.

“But what this highlights is a general communication problem between the driver and the engineer,” insiders at AutoRacer said on the subject. “If four laps earlier Hamilton is told that the rain will remain steady and then gets called in, it’s only natural that Lewis would have a few more doubts. All they needed to do was provide more information when calling him in. Not coming in, however, was a mistake.”

When the football is dreadful, changing the manager alone rarely helps

Communication is a perennial problem at Ferrari, regardless of who is sitting on the pit wall. Charles Leclerc previously worked with Xavier Padrós, whom he replaced with Bryan Bozzi in 2024. Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, replaced Riccardo Adami with his new engineer Carlo Santi before the start of the season.

Four engineers, and Ferrari still have the same problems. That raises the question of whether Carlo Santi and Bryan Bozzi really are solely to blame, or whether there are more deeply rooted flaws in Ferrari’s system.

Look at Red Bull: the Austrian team deployed Tom Hart in Sao Paulo, the man set to succeed Gianpiero Lambiase. It was only Hart’s second race weekend as Max Verstappen’s race engineer, yet communication worked far better than it did between Bozzi and Leclerc, who are now in their third year together, or Santi and Hamilton, who have been working on their communication since January.

In Ferrari’s case, one possible explanation is that the real stumbling block lies behind the scenes, out of public view. A race engineer’s job is not just about what makes the broadcast or what we hear on the onboard feeds on F1 TV.

To respond promptly to their driver’s requests and the situation on track, an engineer also has to act as an information hub, filtering input from strategists at the circuit and the factory, taking information from mechanics, monitoring telemetry and keeping abreast of the weather.

If that unseen communication behind the scenes supporting the race engineer is not working, they have no chance of providing adequate, effective support for their driver. They cannot do everything alone.

Even an ordinary fan accustomed to following live timing during races and experienced in using it can get their bearings within seconds: identifying a driver’s position on track, their current tyres, the laps since their last pit stop, differences in race pace and the strategic picture around them. That is doubly true if they have a favourite driver whom they follow even more closely — almost like their engineer.

A race engineer’s job is to have that information at their fingertips. Yet before calling Leclerc in, Bryan Bozzi failed to realise that his driver was faster than the rivals he was supposed to be defending against by pitting.

Carlo Santi, meanwhile, admitted twice on Sunday that he had no idea what was happening around Lewis Hamilton. It took him a full lap to explain to his driver that Norris was not his rival and that Ferrari were actually attempting an undercut. Did he even know why he had called Hamilton in, or was he simply repeating an instruction someone had given him internally?

Something is not working at Ferrari, and simply changing the race engineer will not be enough to fix it. The Italian team will need to examine their entire internal communication system and keep the race engineer in the picture, rather than leaving him to blindly parrot instructions he apparently receives from other members of the strategy department.

It is also important that his first priority is to update his driver on the current situation, rather than allowing himself to be distracted by what is happening on other radio channels. On Sunday, the fans appeared to have a better understanding of Hamilton being lapped and the undercut attempt on Hülkenberg than Santi himself.

If Ferrari want to fight for the title, it is high time they started doing something about it.