Lewis Hamilton blamed for costly Baku mistake

Lewis Hamilton was left frustrated at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix with a Ferrari tyre strategy which he linked to his surprise Q2 qualifying exit.

However, Ralf Schumacher says Hamilton should be taking a look in the mirror for that one, as he has the “power” to insist on a strategy, but failed to do so. Schumacher made a connection to the Ferrari driver’s Mercedes days which, to his mind, influenced the situation.

Ralf Schumacher turns the tables on Lewis Hamilton

Hamilton and Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc had positioned themselves as possible pole contenders in Baku, the seven-time champion heading a Ferrari one-two to close out Friday practice.

Yet, the 40-year-old failed to make the cut for Q3, while Leclerc crashed out early in that session.

Having contested Q2 on soft tyres, Hamilton had criticised that strategy – which he pointed to Ferrari for – having felt the yellow-walled mediums were the way to go.

“The medium tyre was just much quicker,” Hamilton said.

“The team chose to run me on the medium in Q2, and Charles was meant to run it second run in Q2, but then, because everyone else wasn’t out on them, [we] opted to keep it, and then all the top 10 basically had three mediums.

“We knew that the medium was quicker by, they said it was about three-tenths or something like that, and it felt great, and we should have run it in Q2.”

If that was the case, Schumacher says Hamilton should have spoken up. As a seven-time World Champion, and Formula 1’s most successful driver, the Brit has that authority, says Schumacher.

“He has to take the blame himself,” said Schumacher on Sky Deutschland’s Backstage Boxengasse podcast. “With his experience and his power.

“I wasn’t a seven-time World Champion. I only won a few races. But, if I wanted a certain tyre, I got it. There were no discussions at all.”

Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc head-to-head in F1 2025

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

Stressing that a “normal engineer would never interfere with a driver’s performance”, as the driver knows best how to extract it on any give track, Schumacher gave his opinion that there may have been a Mercedes hangover in that moment for Hamilton.

“That would fit the image that was often a theme with Toto Wolff: ‘Drivers are there to drive. We don’t involve them in decisions at all; we just tell them what to do,’” Schumacher continued.

“Lewis has to assert himself and not look for the mistake elsewhere. Then qualifying will look different – ​​that’s what you’d expect from a seven-time World Champion.”

From 12th on the grid, Hamilton crossed the line eighth. It was supposed to be ninth, but he was unable to execute Ferrari’s request to yield to Leclerc before the line.

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