Hamilton defied Ferrari's pit orders in Singapore, handing Antonelli a podium

Lewis Hamilton cost Ferrari a potential one-two podium finish at the 2026 Singapore Grand Prix after deliberately ignoring a pit-lane instruction during a mid-race safety car period, team principal Fred Vasseur confirmed at Marina Bay on Sunday.

With the safety car deployed, Ferrari’s pitwall called Hamilton in for fresh tyres. He chose to stay out. On the restart, his degraded rubber left him defenceless, and Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli executed a late-race pass on both Hamilton and McLaren’s Lando Norris to claim third place — a podium Ferrari’s internal data suggested Hamilton was on course to secure.

“It was entirely Lewis’s decision,” Vasseur told reporters after the chequered flag. “We called him into the pits, but he didn’t come in.”

Charles Leclerc was unaffected by the strategic drama, converting his pace into second place behind race winner Max Verstappen. Hamilton, by contrast, tumbled to sixth — a five-place swing that Vasseur described as a significant missed opportunity in the Constructors’ Championship standings.

“It’s a real shame because he would have finished P3,” Vasseur said. “I’m disappointed because we could have had both cars on the podium, but instead we finished sixth.”

The episode marks one of the more striking moments of Hamilton’s debut season with Ferrari, raising questions about the communication and trust between the seven-time world champion and his new engineering team. Vasseur, however, was careful not to let the frustration escalate into a public rift.

“We’ll discuss it with him, but overall, they did a good job,” the Ferrari boss added, signalling that the team intends to address the decision internally rather than allow it to destabilise the garage ahead of the United States Grand Prix.