The public message and the Italian reporting do not match. On Saturday in Baku, Hamilton kept his answers to Sky Sports as short as possible when asked whether Vasseur was still the right man to run Ferrari. His reply was one word: “Yes.” Asked what needed to happen in the remaining races, he added: “Keep trying.”

Two days later, Terruzzi’s column in Corriere della Sera painted a very different picture of how Hamilton is functioning inside Maranello, reported in English by GPFans and other outlets.

Terruzzi: ‘Something’s off in Hamilton’s mood’

The Italian journalist opened on Hamilton’s demeanour with the media in Azerbaijan, comparing it to a late-career Kimi Räikkönen.

“In interviews yesterday, he sounded like Raikkonen from the good old days. He has zero desire to talk. He has no desire to be anywhere else. Something’s off in Hamilton’s mood.”

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Terruzzi then went further. He wrote that some inside Ferrari trace Hamilton’s irritation to a specific belief: that when the Briton was ahead of his team-mate earlier in the season, the team leaned the other way.

“Some justify his evident impatience with a series of attitudes and decisions that were too favourable to Leclerc during a season in which he found himself in an advantageous position over his teammate. Something that also took the honey out of his relationship with Vasseur, who, in his view, was a bit too close to Charles.”

The column added that not everyone at Maranello backs Hamilton either. Some inside the team point to mistakes on his car, while others “accuse Hamilton of blaming the engineers even when he was responsible for a subpar performance.”

Hamilton’s Instagram denial is 10 days old

The claim of a fracture with Vasseur lands on top of an earlier Corriere della Sera report that Hamilton had asked Ferrari to change members of his trackside crew. Hamilton rejected that story publicly on 17 September on Instagram, in a statement carried by Grandprix.com.

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“I’ve never asked for anyone on my team to be replaced. Everyone I work with works hard every day, and their dedication is what moves us forward.”

He added that his approach was to “empower and lift people to be the best versions of themselves”. Ferrari has not announced any personnel changes since.

Baku exposed the numbers

The context for both stories is a poor weekend. Ferrari’s cars were beaten by Mercedes on pace at the Baku City Circuit, with Leclerc finishing fourth and Hamilton sixth on Sunday. Hamilton had started the second half of the year second in the drivers’ standings, within reach of Kimi Antonelli. Four rounds later, his title bid is done and he is 103 points behind the championship leader.

Vasseur’s own position has become part of the noise. Speculation has linked former Red Bull team principal Christian Horner to the Ferrari job, and Vasseur has said publicly that he would not stay on in another role if he were replaced by Horner, Yahoo Sports reported on 27 September. Ferrari has not commented on the Corriere della Sera column. The next round is the Singapore Grand Prix at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, with the race scheduled for 11 October.

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