Stand-in Ferrari boss responds to Lewis Hamilton strategy disagreement at Austrian GP

Blatantly telling Riccardo Adami “I don’t want to stop”, stand-in Ferrari team boss Jerome d’Ambrosio says Lewis Hamilton’s strategy was the “optimal” strategy despite the Briton’s questions.

Not for the first time this season, his debut campaign as a Ferrari driver, Hamilton questioned the strategy set out for him by the Ferrari pit wall at the Austrian Grand Prix.

Ferrari: We just did a standard optimal strategy

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Running fourth behind his team-mate Charles Leclerc after the McLaren team-mates scampered off into the distance, Hamilton wanted to stay out on his hard Pirellis.

So began the debate with his race engineer Adami…

Hamilton: My tyres are okay. Can I extend? How many more laps left?
Adami: And box, 20 laps.
Hamilton: I don’t want to stop.
Adami: Box, box.

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Hamilton pitted, his two-stop strategy resulting in a P4 finish with every one of the top five drivers using a two-stopper and Liam Lawson in P6 the first of the drivers on a one-stop strategy.

Hamilton brushed it off, saying: “I didn’t know how many laps there were, to be honest, at the time. The pace wasn’t looking great, but I felt like I could keep going. ”

D’Ambrosio, standing in for Fred Vasseur after he left the track for personal reasons, was also quick to downplay any talk of discontent, putting it down to choosing the optimal strategy given Ferrari were in a race of their own.

“No, I think it was more question of a matter of setting, so staying a few more laps. In the end, it’s nothing out of the norm,” he told the media, including PlanetF1.com.

“What we try to do as a team was to, and Austria is very much like that, you try to do your optimal strategy. You try to optimise your race time.

“That’s what we did with both drivers. To be honest there was no incentive in doing anything different, because the McLarens were clearly far ahead and George quite far behind. So we were in between them with both cars.

“We just did a standard optimal strategy, and that was the most straightforward thing to do.

“From a driver’s perspective, you question always, is it the best? Can we do something else?

“They are racers, they’re Formula 1 drivers, that’s what they should do, and that’s what they do.

“But in the end, you look at the numbers and that’s what made sense.”

D’Ambrosio is, like Hamilton, one of Ferrari’s newest signings having joined the team last season after a brief stint at Mercedes as Toto Wolff’s right-hand man. His move to Maranello meant Hamilton saw a familiar face when he donned the red racing suit.

And the two have had several conversations about what, coming in as outsiders, they feel needs to change along with conversations with Ferrari stalwart Charles Leclerc about what needs to improve.

“Well, I’ve been in the team now since October,” said d’Ambrosio, “and Lewis has been in the team since January so we’ve had a lot of discussions, how can one improve?

“And this is what we do. We wake up, we go to the factory and say, how can I improve? How can we be better in every area of the team, from engineering to execution on the track, to what feedback we can give to the drivers. How can we help one another as a team to move forward?

“And that’s true in every single area of the team.

“So when he came with Lewis, we for sure we discussed all of that, and we discussed in the same way with Charles, who also has extensive experience and we discussed as a team.

“We have regular meetings to discuss these things on how to best move forward.”

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