Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur sparked a very ‘awkward’ situation after the 2026 F1 Singapore Grand Prix over one question about Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.

The Scuderia missed a couple of opportunities at Marina Bay in round 17 of the season last weekend. While Hamilton and Leclerc delivered Ferrari a double podium in the F1 Sprint at the Singapore GP, their efforts in the feature race failed to achieve the best results possible.

Hamilton finished only 2.591s shy as Red Bull rival Max Verstappen won the F1 Sprint at the Singapore GP after Mercedes ace George Russell crashed out from the lead. Leclerc finished the Sprint in third after holding off Andrea Kimi Antonelli, but was 14.280s behind Hamilton.

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Fred Vasseur was ‘sensitive’ about why Ferrari did not impose team orders in the Singapore Grand Prix

The Singapore GP itself then proved to be a wasted opportunity for Ferrari. Leclerc caved to Verstappen at the start of the Singapore GP when he had the chance to send his SF-26 down the inside into Turn 1 after making the better start, which left the Red Bull racer clear to win.

Hamilton ignored Ferrari’s strategy during the Singapore GP, too, for which the Briton would later apologise to the team after opting not to pit behind Leclerc under the virtual safety car and mistakenly attempting a one-stop race. The 41-year-old knew that pitting under the VSC would lock him in to P3 behind Leclerc in P2, but he ultimately fell to P6 after refusing to pit.

Another aspect that likely played on Hamilton’s mind was that Ferrari had not made Leclerc let him past after the first round of pit stops during Sunday’s Singapore GP. Hamilton got off the unfavoured medium C4 compound Pirelli tyres and onto the soft C5s on Lap 18, whereas Leclerc made the opposite move on Lap 24, but Ferrari did not let Hamilton exploit his tyres.

After the race, the question of why Ferrari did not tell Leclerc to let Hamilton through to use the best of his soft C5 tyres in the middle part of the Singapore GP was put to team principal Vasseur. And BBC Sport reports that Vasseur was ‘especially sensitive’ about the topic, as he created an ‘awkward’ situation by cutting journalists off before they finished their questions.

Vasseur tried ‘hard’ to keep calm amid the surge of questions, and he noted that “the tyre advantage was for Charles; he pitted six laps later. I think it was the right call.” The Scuderia team boss also claimed that “after two laps, [Hamilton] was two seconds behind [Leclerc].”