Fred Vasseur has commended Lewis Hamilton for his brilliant victory in the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, with the Ferrari Team Principal praising the Briton\u2019s extensive behind-the-scenes work to return to the top.<\/p>\n
After narrowly missing out on pole position to Mercedes<\/a>\u2019 George Russell<\/a> on Saturday, Hamilton<\/a> worked with the team to execute a bold three-stop strategy. He followed up his second pit stop with rapid laps that closed the gap to Russell, before taking the race lead when the Mercedes man boxed again.<\/p>\n A golden opportunity then presented itself as the Virtual Safety Car was deployed while Fernando Alonso\u2019s stranded Aston Martin was recovered, allowing Ferrari<\/a> to box Hamilton for fresh rubber while the pack was slowed, and maintain first place.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a good feeling,\u201d Vasseur told F1 TV as the team secured their first win since the 2024 Mexico City Grand Prix. \u201cToday he was managing the situation very well \u2013 as soon as we were adjusting the strategy, he was pushing more or less. He was very outstanding today.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that Lewis\u2019 approach was consistent from the beginning. He is fully committed, fully convinced, and he is pushing everybody. We need to have this kind of energy and it\u2019s paying off today.<\/p>\n \u201cWe also have to stay calm \u2013 it\u2019s not like last week we were nowhere and today we are World Champions. That would be a huge mistake. It means that we need to keep the same approach in Austria as in Barcelona. It\u2019s what we will do.\u201d<\/p>\n Hamilton has publicly explained the adjustments made at Ferrari to help him improve, such as shuffling his squad of race engineers around and changing how he prepares for race weekends.<\/p>\n He was heard communicating with the team over the radio during the Grand Prix to ensure that their strategy worked, asking what lap times he needed to target in order to maintain a gap to their rivals at Mercedes.<\/p>\n Vasseur recognised that while the strategy was crucial, the win would not have been possible without their improved pace. He said: \u201cThe strategy went very well today but it also went very well in the last couple of events when the pace was a bit less impressive and it was more difficult.<\/p>\n \u201cThe confidence that we have between us on the pit wall and with the drivers is key. With strategy, you could make a mistake next week \u2013 it\u2019s never a given. The fact that we have this level of confidence between us is key for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n The result, combined with Kimi Antonelli<\/a>\u2019s retirement from the race, has seen Hamilton reduce the Italian\u2019s advantage in the standings<\/a> from 66 to 41 points as he brought an end to Mercedes\u2019 six-race winning streak.<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, I\u2019m trying to calm down bad comments and too enthusiastic comments,\u201d Vasseur told Sky Sports F1 when asked if Hamilton is back to his best. \u201cLewis is a bit emotional, the team is emotional and my job is to try to calm down everybody in both situations. For sure, it\u2019s a huge push in terms of confidence for him this weekend. It will be a new start.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fred Vasseur has commended Lewis Hamilton for his brilliant victory in the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, with the Ferrari…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":737912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-737911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/737912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}