“You said he was slowing down, man. For f**k sake!": Lewis Hamilton rages at his race engineer during the F1 Monaco GP qualifying

Lewis Hamilton was noted for impeding Max Verstappen during qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix. The Briton was on his preparatory lap while the Dutchman arrived at the scene, but his race engineer, Riccardo Adami, had informed that the Red Bull driver was on a slow lap, which was the main reason for the altercation, leading Hamilton to have an outburst over the radio.

The seven-time world champion has shared quite a few moments on the track with Verstappen over the past few years. Though the two have often maintained the mutual respect both on and off the track, and have rarely tripped over each other recently, a small miscommunication led to this ending with bad taste in the Dutchman's camp.

During Q1, all 20 cars can be out on the track at the same time, and with the Monaco GP circuit being the smallest one on the calendar, this issue is compounded. Multiple instances of impeding were noted during the three-part qualifying session, but the first one appeared on the FIA radar with Lewis Hamilton impeding Max Verstappen.

Hamilton had bolted a set of new soft tires and was on a preparatory lap while Verstappen emerged in the background. Adami had told the Briton about the 27-year-old being close behind, but seemingly gave wrong information on how the Dutchman was slowing down.

This led the 40-year-old to decipher that the Red Bull driver would stay behind him and he need not stay off course for him as he was on a cooldown lap. But, when the scene became clear with Verstappen squirling around his outside, the seven-time champion was left infuriated and said over the radio (via @fiagirly on X):

"You said he was slowing down, man. For f**k sake! Did he slow down?”

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Why has Lewis Hamilton struggled with the Ferrari SF-25 so far this season?

Lewis Hamilton after crashing the Ferrari SF-25 at the Free Practice session 3 at the F1 Grand Prix of Monaco - Source: Getty

Lewis Hamilton has secured 104 pole positions over the years and started the Sprint race in China at the forefront while bearing the Scuderia red. Barring this occasion, the former world champion has not been a consistent threat for the top positions in his Ferrari SF-25.

Revealing how one-lap pace has been a challenge for the prancing horse this year, Hamilton said (via Motorsport Week):

"I was in the simulator on Monday. I was there nice and early Monday morning. It’s really incredible to see. Probably people don’t realize, but the engineers and mechanics, it does not stop. They go straight from the track, you go home Sunday night and they’re in the factory the next day. It just does not stop, they’re churning through the data. Yes, there’s lots of, lots of positives, as we said last weekend to take from it. There’s still areas that we need to improve on."

“Clearly, our qualifying has been our biggest weakness so far this year. We’re not extracting the performance from the tyres, and that’s something we are working on."

Lewis Hamilton qualified fourth for the Monaco GP but has a strong case of earning a grid drop owing to his impeding incident with Verstappen earlier in the day, which may shuffle up the grid before the race goes green.