"I'll tell you when I'll swap": Lewis Hamilton's terse radio message when told to swap positions with Charles Leclerc at the F1 Chinese GP

Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton instructed his race engineer, Ricardo Adami, that he would tell him when he would swap positions with teammate Charles Leclerc during the 2025 Chinese Grand Prix. The seven-time F1 world champion was struggling with the balance of his SF-25 and was suffering from massive tire degradation in the first stint of the race.

The 40-year-old had started the race in P5 ahead of his teammate and made up a position on Max Verstappen at the start. However, he collided with Leclerc in Turn 2, which left the latter with a broken front wing endplate.

Despite the damage, Charles Leclerc was running quicker than Lewis Hamilton on the medium and the early part of the hard tire stint. To maximize the team's result, the Brit on his team radio suggested:

"I think I'm gonna let Charles go because I'm struggling."

Adami advised his charge to swap cars in Turn 14 but the 7-time World Champion declined and said he would if Leclerc got closer. On the next lap, he was given the same instruction, to which, Hamilton replied:

"I'll tell you when I'll swap."

The Brit ultimately let Charles Leclerc on the next lap heading into Turn 2 and ran his own race.

Lewis Hamilton finished the Chinese Grand Prix in P6 behind his teammate and was the only driver in the leading group to make two pit stops.

---

Lewis Hamilton reflected on his struggles with the SF-25 in China

Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton stated that the changes made to his car after his excellent Sprint win on Saturday made it "terrible". Speaking with F1.com, the seven-time F1 world champion said:

“I feel okay. I wasn’t able to get the result that I was hoping for today. I needed a good start – which I got – [and] I was trying to see if I could pounce forwards but I just didn’t have the pace of the cars up ahead. And just balance-wise, from the Sprint race we made these changes and the car was terrible after that, so I really struggled with the car from then on.”

Despite the poor end to the weekend, Hamilton claimed that he would take positives from the race given he dominated the Sprint segment, adding:

“Yeah, definitely. I think it’s good learning and hopefully [we] won’t do that again as I continue to learn this car. I think there’s definitely positives to take from the weekend. Obviously we’re losing ground to the McLarens points-wise, McLaren and Mercedes and [Max] Verstappen, but we’ve just got to keep pushing.”

The weekend went from bad to worse for Ferrari as its drivers were disqualified from the race after failing their post-race checks and were found guilty of having an underweight car on Leclerc's end and excessive plank wear on Hamilton's.