'Fire in my belly' led to team orders controversy - Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton says a double controversy over team orders at Ferrari during the Miami Grand Prix was triggered because he has "still got fire in my belly".

The seven-time champion asked to be let past team-mate Charles Leclerc to try to attack Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli in the race, and when he did not receive an answer fast enough said: "Take a tea break while you're at it."

It was one of two team orders incidents at Ferrari during the race. A few laps later, when Hamilton had failed to make sufficient impression on Antonelli and was not going to be able to catch him before the end of the race, the team asked him to let Leclerc back ahead.

The race was won by McLaren's Oscar Piastri ahead of team-mate Lando Norris.

Hamilton said afterwards: "I've still got my fire in my belly. I could feel a bit of it really coming up there.

"I'm not going to apologise for being a fighter. I'm not going to apologise for still wanting it. I know everyone in the team does, too.

"I didn't think the decision came quick enough. And for sure, in that time you're like, 'Come on!' But that's really kind of it.

"I have no problems with the team or with Charles. I think we could do better. But the car is not where we really need to be. Ultimately we're fighting for seventh and eighth."

When Hamilton was subsequently asked to let Leclerc go back ahead of him, the Briton appeared not to do this straight away. When Leclerc was told that the swap would happen the next lap, he said "don't bother" and suggested they just talk about it after the race.

Hamilton did then let Leclerc back past, and they finished with the Monegasque ahead.

Hamilton said: "It wasn't even anger. It wasn't like, effing and blinding and anything like that. It's like, 'make a decision!'

"You're sitting there on the chair, you've got the stuff in front of you, make the decision, quick. That's how I was. We're in a panic, we're trying to keep the car on the track. We're computing things fast.

"I don't know what you're going to write, or whether I was disrespectful or whatever. I honestly don't feel I was. I was like, 'come on guys, I want to win'."

The issue arose because Ferrari had put the two drivers on different strategies.

Leclerc started on medium tyres and stopped earlier to switch to the hard compound. Hamilton started on hards and ran longer before switching to mediums, which meant his tyres were faster than Leclerc's at the time.

Team principal Frederic Vasseur went to Hamilton's room in the Ferrari building in the paddock to discuss the incidents with the 40-year-old before he spoke to the media.

Vasseur said: "My concern is not that he has to speak with TV. It's that we need to be clear between us that, in this situation, he has to understand what was my feeling on the pit wall. He can trust me, I can trust him and the same with Charles.

"And when I have to take a decision, I'm taking a decision for Ferrari."

Hamilton said: "Fred came to my room. I just put my hand on his shoulder and was like, 'Dude, calm down. Don't be so sensitive.'

"I could have said way worse things on the radio. You hear some of the things others have said in the past.

"Some of it was sarcasm. Look, you've got to understand we're under a huge amount of pressure within the car. You're never going to get the most peaceful messages coming through in the heat of the battle. It was fine."

Hamilton said he had not been able to pull away from Leclerc after being allowed past because he had "lost quite a bit of the tyres in that (fight), which is OK. We were battling for position at the end of the day."

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."

Both drivers said their frustration at the situation was heightened by the car's lack of performance. They qualified eighth and 12th before fighting up to their eventual positions.

Leclerc said: "We need to separate the two things. Yes, we need to fix those (strategy) issues that probably cost us one position, but the other seven or six positions are down to the car and we need to make it better.

"There will be things coming at one point and I hope that this will help us to do a step forward."

Hamilton was much closer to Leclerc's pace than in the previous three races, and said he felt he had made progress in his understanding of the Ferrari car in Miami.

"I genuinely feel I had a better weekend. I had a good day in general," he said. "Eighth doesn't really look like that. I feel optimistic for the future. I think this car really does have performance.

"Something's holding us back at the moment. We've lost performance since (the second race in) China. And it's there, it's just we can't use it. Until we get a fix for that, then this is where we are.

"To get the third yesterday (in the sprint race) was a positive. With a better qualifying, I only missed out by half a tenth. Still, for us, we're battling with the Williams here, so we're clearly not as quick as we want to be.

"And I truly believe that when we fix some of the problems that we have with the car, we'll be back in the fight with the Mercedes, with the (Red) Bulls. It just can't come quick enough."