Lost in translation? Hamilton's radio woes continue in Monaco
F1
Hamilton’s challenging adaptation to life at Ferrari was on full display in Monaco, where a series of confusing radio exchanges highlighted ongoing communication issues between the seven-time world champion and his engineer
Lewis Hamilton‘s fifth-place finish in the Monaco Grand Prix wasn’t a bad result considering how his 2025 season has been going, but the race highlighted more of the communication problems he has endured in his first year with Ferrari.
Some of the rather bizarre radio exchanges with his race engineer Riccardo Adami during the race were broadcast for the world to hear, while others emerged online later, leading to further suggestions that Hamilton and Adami still need to work on their language/communication barrier.
The Monaco race featured several moments in which Hamilton didn’t quite understand what Adami was referring to or simply didn’t answer the question the British driver was asking.
This followed on from the radio confusion that led to Hamilton impeding Max Verstappen during qualifying, an incident for which the Ferrari driver was penalised with three places on the grid.
“Are they still nearly a minute ahead?” Hamilton asked during the latter part of the race, to which Adami replied: “Charles on medium and McLarens on hard, in [Turn] 16, very close to each other fighting.”
“You’re not answering the question,” said Hamilton. “It doesn’t really matter, I guess.”
Previously, Hamilton had told Adami the information he was getting on the radio was “very sporadic”.
Adami: “Verstappen race leader is 22 ahead, his laptime 15.6.”
Hamilton: “And where is everyone else?
Adami: “Piastri 10 seconds ahead of you.”
Hamilton: “Then why the hell are you giving me Verstappen’s stint, mate?”
Hamilton was a very distant fifth in Monaco
Grand Prix Photo
He later added: “Just been a little bit lost out there, just you know, good. It’s very sporadic your info.”
The final radio message broadcast came after the end of the race, with Hamilton asking Adami: “Are you upset with me or something?”
That was followed by a long silence.
Hamilton admitted afterwards that his day had been pretty confusing.
“It wasn’t very clear. The information wasn’t exactly that clear,” he told Sky. “I didn’t really understand ‘this is our race’. I didn’t know what I was fighting for. Am I fighting for the next spot ahead or?
“But in actual fact when I look at the data I wasn’t anywhere near any of the guys up front. I used up my tyres a lot in that respect in that moment but I was so far away from how many I’d seen.”
Monaco was the latest example of the communication issues Hamilton highlighted, but it wasn’t the first this year.
The seven-time world champion’s sarcastic comments on the radio during the Miami Grand Prix also caught the attention of fans and media as he tried to convince the team that the slower Charles Leclerc should allow him past.
“This is not good teamwork, that’s all I’m going to say. In China, I got out the way,” Hamilton complained during the Miami race, as the team delayed a decision before finally agreeing.
“We swapped the cars,” Adami told him, to which Hamilton snapped: “Have a tea break while you’re at it.”
Miami also offered some radio entertainment from Ferrari
Once Hamilton was past Leclerc, he failed to pull away — having spent several laps behind his team-mate — and he was then ordfered to give his position back to Leclerc. Hamilton’s sassy comments when told about the gap to Carlos Sainz behind him once again proved remarkable: “You want me to let him pass as well?” he said.
The two-stop experiment didn't make much of a difference to the racing as Lando Norris produced his most convincing weekend of 2025. Here's what we learned from the Monaco Grand Prix
By
Pablo Elizalde
It’s always risky to read too much into radio messages, as they are usually given in the heat of the moment when emotions are running too high to think about being respectful and polite.
They also often don’t reflect the situation reliably as the F1 broadcast is selective about what the public gets to hear.
Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur has often downplayed suggestions of tension between Hamilton and Adami, and he insisted that everything was fine after Monaco as well.
“It’s not that we are sleeping, it’s not that we are having a beer on the pitwall, it’s just because we have a section of the track, where we agreed before to speak with him,” Vasseur said.
“Honestly, it’s not a tension that the guy is asking something. He’s between the wall, he’s under pressure, he’s fighting. I spoke with him after the race, he was not upset at all.”
Given Hamilton finished nearly a minute behind Leclerc in Monaco, the radio problems will not be his biggest headache, but it’s still one of the visible factors highlighting his adaptation to the Scuderia is still a work in progress.
