‘Can’t imagine Lewis Hamilton putting up’ with Ferrari’s questionable radio messages

Ahead of Lewis Hamilton’s 2025 move to Ferrari, the Scuderia have been warned the Briton won’t “put up” with the sort of radio messages Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have to deal with.

Ferrari’s radio messages created headlines last season with the team’s tension-fraught and at times confusing conversations, Sainz even raging when he received what he felt was unnecessary information about Hamilton at the Monaco Grand Prix.

That was just one incident with the drivers at times left to decide their own strategies and at others told to pit even when they felt it wasn’t the right time.

‘I can’t imagine Lewis putting up with the kind of radio calls’

It has pundits wondering if Hamilton will try to persuade a friendly voice to join him at Ferrari with Pete Bonnington’s name mentioned.

Mercedes have all but put an end to that, telling PlanetF1.com that Hamilton’s contract includes a ‘no-poaching’ clause which prevents him from having a chat with his long-time race engineer.

That, though, has done little to silence the conversation.

“I’ll just put this out there,” commentator Alex Jacques said on F1TV’s coverage of pre-season testing. “I can’t imagine Lewis putting up with the kind of radio calls that Charles and Carlos do.”

As the conversation continued with an “amazed if it’s just Lewis Hamilton, who makes the trip to Ferrari, even with what they’ve said”, Anthony Davidson weighed in.

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“I think his influence there, I can’t wait to see what it does to the team,” said the former F1 driver.

“I think he’ll still put in some incredible performances particularly in the races, like we’ve seen with Fernando Alonso at Aston Martin. Just they’ve got that calibre, they’ve got that experience.

“I don’t think they need to take people with them. When you get to that kind of a level you don’t need to bring a team with you.

“Remember, Michael [Schumacher] was quite young still in his career when he took the entourage to Ferrari.

“I think people will just look up to him, like they did with Fernando at Aston Martin. They look up to you.

“You have to respect them, you have to rely on their experience, their expertise, and basically do what they want. Give them time, they will start to mould the team into shape where they feel performance will come from.”

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