Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur shows true colours with angry reply to Lewis Hamilton question

Before the start of the season, Ferrari made the decision to replace Carlos Sainz with Lewis Hamilton at the end of the year.  

However, despite this decision, Sainz is currently performing exceptionally well while Hamilton is facing challenges with Mercedes.    Frederic Vasseur became upset with a journalist when asked about Lewis Hamilton following Carlos Sainz’s impressive performance.  

Sainz is set to depart from Ferrari at the conclusion of the year due to the team’s decision to replace him with the seven-time champion.  

Despite this news, the Spanish driver has had an impressive beginning to the F1 season, achieving a victory and two additional podium finishes in the three races he has participated in. 

In contrast, Hamilton has struggled for form with another wretched Mercedes car. His best result so far is seventh, secured in the Bahrain season-opener, while the three races since have yielded just four more points.

Two of those came on Sunday when he finished ninth in the Japanese Grand Prix. Sainz was third behind only the runaway Red Bulls and, inevitably, boss Vasseur was once again quizzed about the decision to let the 29-year-old go.

Clearly, though, it is a topic he is tired of speaking about. The Frenchman didn’t even let the reporter finish his question before interrupting to leap to the defence of his future driver Hamilton and shut down another comparison to his outgoing star.

“We have the same question each weekend,” Vasseur glowered, before adding: “Do a copy paste of my reply of last week. Next one.”

It seemed Hamilton was in a similar mood to his future boss when it came to questions about Ferrari’s current superiority over Mercedes. The 39-year-old also took his frustration out on a reporter as he stormed out of the print media pen after the Suzuka race.

He was first asked how his race had been, to which Hamilton bluntly replied: “It was okay.” He took exception to the next question, from the same reporter, who asked: “Are you a little bit jealous of the Ferraris at the moment? Because they are faster?”

Hamilton’s retort was: “Do you have any better questions?” The reporter apologised but before anyone else could ask, the Mercedes racer walked away and his press officer simply said: “Thank you.”

He expressed his opinions about his latest Mercedes vehicle while speaking on television.   He mentioned that the car did not meet his expectations.  

He explained that the hard tire performed poorly, while the medium tire was better.  

Looking back, he realized that it would have been better to have two medium tires.   Overall, he felt that the car performed poorly that day.