Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has revealed that he gave Lewis Hamilton a “push” after his poor qualifying result at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Excluding his victory in the Chinese Grand Prix sprint race last month, Hamilton claimed his best result to date for Ferrari by finishing fifth in Bahrain on Sunday.

Ferrari boss: Lewis Hamilton ‘has to do a step’

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

It came 24 hours after Hamilton was heard apologising profusely to Ferrari over team radio after a mistake on his final lap of qualifying left him down in ninth, six positions behind team-mate Charles Leclerc.

Hamilton has been open about the challenges of adapting to a new team after spending 12 full seasons with Mercedes between 2013 and 2024, with his move to Ferrari marking only the second team switch of his illustrious career.

Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com following the Bahrain GP, Vasseur said he was encouraged by Hamilton’s crestfallen reaction to his qualifying result having shown encouraging pace compared to Leclerc until that stage of the weekend.

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And he revealed that he had to give the seven-time World Champion a motivational “push” ahead of race day.

He said: “You won’t replace 12 years of collaboration [with Mercedes] in two weeks or in two races.

“For sure, we need to improve but I think this is true for everybody in the paddock.

“The DNA of our sport is to try to do a better job and I think it’s good to have Lewis with this mindset: ‘OK, I have to improve also myself and to adapt myself to the car.’

“We will work on the car and develop the car to Lewis – but he has also to do a step.

“I think this between us is done in a positive way and a very constructive way.

“The fact that he was a bit down yesterday evening, I like it, because if the guy is coming back P10 [sic] and says ‘it’s a shame’ [it’s a bad sign].

“For sure, he was disappointed because he was much better all the weekend so far.

“Now we know it happens like this in F1 today. It was not the case three, four years ago that when you had five tenths between the teams, because you do a mistake you lose one position, one row [on the grid].

“Today, you lose five tenths, you can lose six or seven positions.

“I think Charles was on the first row, but if he was a three or four hundredths slower he would have been P6. It’s always relative.

“We have to stay calm in terms of judgement of the performance, because sometimes for almost nothing you can change a good weekend into a very poor one.

“I appreciated the direction of Lewis [after qualifying].

“I did my best to push him a little bit and today he was in a very good shape and a very strong shape.

“I understand the frustration [on Saturday] evening, because if you have a look from FP1, FP2, FP3, Q1, Q2 he was, to the tenth, plus or minus with Charles.

“And then you arrive at Q3, the first lap is deleted and the second one he made a mistake.

“And then you pay the price, because the grid is made not on the average, but on the last lap.

“And for sure that it’s a bit of frustration. Frustration for him, but for us also.

“He had a very strong recovery [in the race]. Solid race that he came back [to] P5.

“I think the race time compared to the top two, top three is almost similar. For me, it was OK and today he was he was very strong and consistent.

“But now with the field that we have, if you miss two or three tenths in quali because you do a mistake, you lose a six or seven positions.”

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Asked if he feels that Hamilton has been judged too quickly at the start of his Ferrari career, Vasseur admitted that it was to be expected given the emotion surrounding the Scuderia.

And he pointed to Hamilton’s rollercoaster Chinese GP weekend, where he was disqualified from the main event 24 hours after winning the sprint race, as evidence of the unique atmosphere of the Scuderia.

He said: “We are Latin – I was not expecting something different!

“After [the] China [sprint] we were speaking about the prize-giving ceremony. After China, race two, it was a disaster.

“Honestly, in terms of management, I think we have to take it a bit easy, to calm down.

“We have ups and downs, as does everybody.

“The issue is that, for us, the ups are a bit higher and the downs are a bit lower.

“It means that if we want to keep a consistent approach and we did it very well the last two years.

“We have to stay calm to try to improve hundredths of seconds by hundredths of seconds, but I’m convinced that we’ll do the same job as we did the last two years.”

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