The final message broadcast from Lewis Hamilton to his race engineer Riccardo Adami at the end of Sunday’s race was: “Are you upset with me?”
The pair had little to celebrate after the Monaco Grand Prix, even though Hamilton had moved up two places to finish fifth.
That was still one place lower than he originally qualified. He’d taken a three-place grid penalty for holding up Max Verstappen during Q1, largely due to Adami incorrectly informing him that Verstappen was not on a flying lap.
After picking up a couple of places early in the race, Hamilton lost touch with the leading group of four cars. The timing of his pit stops meant he encountered a lot of traffic and, as in previous races this year, he often pressed Adami for information he wasn’t receiving.
The mutual frustration grew as Hamilton dropped further behind and his requests for information occasionally went unanswered. That appeared to include Hamilton’s final query.
Hamilton’s Monaco Grand Prix team radio transcript
Jump to:
“Is Alonso slow or is he just managing?”
“Push now, this is our race”
“Eventually fighting Verstappen”
“Verstappen ahead of you, turn one”
“I thought he came out just ahead of me?”
“I can’t match that”
“We’ll correct it at the next pit stop”
“Why the hell are you giving me Verstappen’s stint?”
“10 cars on blue flags”
“Have I been dead slow this whole race?”
“You’re not answering the question”
“Is Alonso slow or is he just managing?”
Hamilton held on to his seventh place at the start, following Fernando Alonso and Isack Hadjar ahead. He grew concerned when Hadjar began to pull away from them after lap seven.
"Push now, this is our race”
Ferrari got the timing of Hamilton’s first pit stop spot-on, allowing him to jump ahead of Alonso and Hadjar without being threatened by Esteban Ocon behind.
“Eventually fighting Verstappen”
Hamilton’s next target was Verstappen. However as the Ferrari driver had made his first pit stop much earlier than his rival, Hamilton faced an uphill struggle to close in.
“Verstappen ahead of you, turn one”
By the time Verstappen made his first pit stop, Hamilton’s tyres were already 10 laps old. He lost more time ploughing through traffic as first Liam Lawson and later Alexander Albon held up queues of cars in order to help their team mates. Between laps 31 and 37 he fell 14 seconds back from the race leaders.
“I can’t match that”
Once in free air, Hamilton tried to match Verstappen’s pace, but his hard tyres were now over 20 laps old while Verstappen was running on mediums.
“We’ll correct it at the next pit stop”
As Hamilton’s second stint drew to an end, he became increasingly concerned about his car’s balance. Ferrari prepared to make a change for his final pit stop, when he would switch back to the medium rubber.
“Why the hell are you giving me Verstappen’s stint?”
Hamilton’s frustration at being unable to catch Verstappen, and the feeling he was being left in the dark with his race situation, came out when he learned he was closer to Oscar Piastri ahead than the Red Bull he had been chasing.
As he pitted, Hamilton took the opportunity to encourage Adami to feed him more details about his race.
“10 cars on blue flags”
Hamilton lost even more time in his second stint when he had to go through lapped traffic all over again. Half the field was compressed into a single queue by this stage.
“Have I been dead slow this whole race?”
As Hamilton grew more concerned about his position in the race, another of his queries went unanswered.
“You’re not answering the question”
Hamilton kept pushing Adami to put him in the picture about his race situation, and eventually got the unwelcome news he had fallen far behind the leaders. After the race, when Hamilton asked Adami if he was “upset”, no response was broadcast.
- Keith Collantine
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