Leclerc echoed Hamilton’s insistence that the drivers did not blame each other.
“There’s no bad feelings with Lewis, not at all,” he said. “I understand as well that Lewis is trying to do something different, so I appreciate that. I would have done the same thing as if I was him and trying to be a bit more aggressive with the medium tyres.”
This is an accurate representation of their relationship. No rival team-mates are ever best friends. But Hamilton and Leclerc respect each other’s ability, like each other and are relaxed in each others’ company at official events and within the team.
Vasseur denied that the team had taken too long to make the decision and said he had merely been trying to be sure that Hamilton’s apparent extra pace was not simply down to being within the one-second range that allowed him to use the DRS overtaking aid. This gives an approximate 0.6secs improvement in lap time to the driver using it.
Vasseur said: “It took us one lap, it means that it’s one minute thirty seconds to understand, and then we asked them to swap.
“Perhaps you can argue at the end that we would have been better to do it directly, but we didn’t know if it was the DRS effect or not.
“We took the tough decision because it’s never easy to ask Charles or Lewis to swap, but we did it.
“What happened today is absolutely not an issue for me. I can perfectly understand their frustration when we are asking something like this.
“It’s frustrating because they have the feeling that they gave up a position. We did it just for the benefit of the team.
“Sometimes it’s working, sometimes not. But we did it with the same goal and they are perfectly aligned with us. The target was to catch Antonelli. It’s not an issue at all.”
