F1 responds after Ferrari calls broadcast of Hamilton's radio a "joke" · RaceFans

Formula One Management has held talks with Ferrari after the team complained over its use of Lewis Hamilton’s radio messages during yesterday’s Chinese Grand Prix.

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur reportedly described FOM’s editing of Hamilton’s messages as a “joke.”

FOM monitors each drivers’ live radio communications in real time during a grand prix. While all or the majority of them are played on the drivers’ onboard channels available via F1 TV, only an edited portion of them are included in the world television feed.

Vasseur complained that the selection of Hamilton’s messages gave a misleading impression of his role in the swap of positions between the team’s cars on lap 21 of yesterday’s race.

Hamilton originally suggested the cars swap places during lap 18. He told race engineer Riccardo Adami: “I think I’m going to let Charles go, because I’m struggling.” However this message was not played on the world television feed.

The first radio message indicating Ferrari were considering a change of order to appear on the world feed was played on lap 20. This was a clip of a message from the previous lap, in which Adami said “we are swapping cars turn 14,” and Hamilton replied: “When he’s closer, yeah.”

Vasseur felt the choice of radio messages overlooked Hamilton’s role in the team orders. An FOM spokesperson told RaceFans this had not been done deliberately.

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“There was absolutely no intention of presenting a misleading narrative regarding the Ferrari team radio,” they said. “Due to other situations developing during the race the message from Lewis was not played but this was not intentional.”

The discussions at Ferrari coincided with other developments in the race, including Lando Norris passing George Russell following their pit stops.