Ferrari chief gives Lewis Hamilton new nickname | Sports News

Frederic Vasseur erupted into 15 seconds of steady laughter after acknowledging what he had radioed to Lewis Hamilton following the Canadian Grand Prix.

Morale was elevated, particularly within Hamilton’s part of the Ferrari storage, after a strong efficiency delivered the Brit his most interesting Grand Prix end with the crew so far. He maintained aggressive velocity all through most of the Grand Prix and leveraged it to problem for a podium place.

Hamilton moved into third place when George Russell abruptly retired with an engine failure whereas main. But circumstances improved additional late within the race with a spectacular move on Max Verstappen, which secured each second place and the fan-voted Driver of the Day honor.

Hamilton obtained congratulations over the radio from his race engineer earlier than crew principal Vasseur additionally joined the airwaves to offer reward. And some eyebrows have been raised as he addressed his driver as ‘Luigi’ — the Italian-language model of the anglicized title Lewis.

When Sky Sports pit lane reporter Ted Kravitz requested Vasseur to repeat what he had known as his driver, the Frenchman verified what he had stated and commenced laughing enthusiastically about it for roughly 15 seconds.

When he had ultimately stopped chuckling, the Ferrari boss was happy to share his evaluation of what was one of his British driver’s strongest performances with the Scuderia. Vasseur commented: “It was a very strong performance today, the conditions were mega difficult. You were struggling to recover and, to come back, he was able to push from the beginning to the end. He had confidence, and he did a very strong race and strong weekend overall.”

Despite securing fourth place and invaluable championship factors, Charles Leclerc endured a more difficult weekend. Vasseur noticed of the Monegasque driver: “On Charles’ side, on this side of the garage, it was more a matter of confidence over the weekend. He struggled much more than Lewis over the weekend, and in these conditions, it’s good to bring the car back in at the end to score good points. Let’s come back stronger next week.”

The end result will present a important morale enhance for Hamilton, who appeared delighted during his post-race media obligations. It might additionally help silence growing conjecture relating to his future, which has dominated latest headlines. Hamilton confirmed earlier within the weekend that his contract extends via 2027, and Vasseur declined to deal with hypothesis surrounding his driver’s potential retirement.

He stated: “All of this is just about rumors and gossip and such. We don’t have to comment or to answer this. We know what we are doing, we know that we have a clear target and goal and that we are pushing together as a team. You can write whatever you want.”