Charles Leclerc in angry Lewis Hamilton radio message that Sky Sports didn't broadcast

Charles Leclerc slammed Lewis Hamilton's botched swap at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in a furious radio message which was not aired by Sky Sports. The two Ferrari drivers were involved in a tense situation during the closing stages of the race in Baku. They initially swapped positions to allow Hamilton, on fresher tyres, to challenge the cars ahead.

The veteran Brit was unable to make up any ground, though, leading to Ferrari asking him to swap back on the final lap. He left it very late, easing off the throttle on the home straight, but got his bearings wrong and finished just ahead of Leclerc. It left his team-mate frustrated but he played down the significance of the failed swap after the chequered flag.

"I mean, there are rules that we know we've got to work with, and today, maybe those rules were not respected," said Leclerc in the media pen. "But again, I mean, P8 to P9, that's small.

"Going forward, obviously, if we are fighting for sexier positions, which I hope it will be the case, then I hope that we will work in a different way, but on a day like that, honestly, I don't really mind."

Now, it has emerged that Leclerc issued a furious rebuke of Hamilton via team radio before stepping out of the cockpit. The message, which saw the Monegasque driver sarcastically tell his team-mate to 'enjoy that P8', was not aired by Sky Sports.

After his race engineer apologised for the botched swap, Leclerc replied: "Ah, I don't really care. It's for an eighth place, so it's okay, he can enjoy that P8. It's just stupid because it's not fair. But again, I don't mind, honestly. It's been a difficult weekend."

Hamilton, meanwhile, said in his post-race interview that he was sorry and described the failed swap as a 'misjudgment' on his part.

"Obviously I was quicker, but Charles was gracious to let me by," he reflected. "At the end, I got the message really late on and I was zoned in on the car in front of me, even though there was 0.001 [per cent] chance of passing.

"I was still hopeful, maybe. Basically, I did lift on the straight and did actually brake, but I missed it by four tenths, so that was just a misjudgement for myself, so I apologise to Charles. At the end of the day, it's eighth and ninth."

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur added: "I think the situation was clear for us that Lewis had a tyre advantage and we asked Charles to let him go to try to overtake [Liam] Lawson and [Yuki] Tsunoda or [Lando] Norris.

"On the top, Charles had an issue with the recovery [system] and we are not at the top on the engine and that, I think, was the best option for us to do this move. We asked to swap back and it looks like Lewis had a misjudgement."

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