At Ferrari, the plan was a secret — even from Hamilton

One lap too many behind Leclerc

On Sunday in the Netherlands, Hamilton was running a different strategy to his teammate and, at one point in the race, had more pace than him. Ahead, Charles Leclerc was visibly struggling on worn medium tyres. Hamilton asked to be let through. The pit wall hesitated. Leclerc stayed out two more laps before pitting.

Hamilton didn't hold back on the radio, firing off a sharp remark about the team costing him time. A small moment in itself, but one that set the tone for the rest of the afternoon.

"Am I a guinea pig or what?"

Later in the race, with Lando Norris and Kimi Antonelli closing in fast behind him, Ferrari chose to leave Hamilton out on ageing tyres — without a word of explanation. The seven-time champion eventually asked, visibly irritated, whether he was being used as a guinea pig.

In truth, the pit wall was weighing up running him to the flag without another stop, and didn't want to spell out the plan over the radio for fear of tipping off rival teams. A defensible idea on paper. Except it left the driver who had to execute it completely in the dark, at the exact moment when every tenth mattered. A late Virtual Safety Car ultimately reshuffled the cards by handing him fresh tyres anyway.

Vasseur stands his ground, the Mercedes comparison stings

After the race, Frédéric Vasseur defended the radio silence and admitted there had been some confusion. He also pointed out, fairly, that the real missed opportunity may have come on Saturday: qualifying fifth and sixth on a track where overtaking is difficult already left both Ferraris with a deficit that Sunday's strategy was supposed to claw back.

The trouble is, Mercedes did the exact opposite at the same moment. Antonelli, on fresher tyres than Russell, asked to be let through — the call came instantly, Russell moved aside, and Antonelli set off after Norris. The result: second and third for Mercedes, fourth and fifth for Ferrari, with Hamilton finishing less than a second off the podium. The kind of gap that makes every second lost behind Leclerc hard to look past, even though Hamilton himself admitted Mercedes still held a clear straight-line speed advantage.

Monza, with no room for error

In the standings, Hamilton is now level on points with Russell and 59 behind Antonelli, with eleven races still to run. There isn't much margin left for this kind of episode.

The calendar couldn't have timed it worse, or better, depending on how you look at it: next up is Monza, the temple of speed and Ferrari's home ground, in front of the tifosi. Antonelli will start there with at least a ten-place grid penalty after an engine change — a golden opportunity for the Scuderia, provided it decides quickly this time, and actually tells its driver.

Vasseur has a point: judging a call in hindsight is always easier than making it at 300 km/h. But on home turf, in front of its own crowd, Ferrari won't have the excuse of surprise anymore — only the more embarrassing one of hesitation.