Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur pours ice on Lewis Hamilton rift rumour, but there's a gaping hole

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has denied rumours of a rift between Lewis Hamilton and his race engineer following another icy exchange between the pair.

But his explanation has a gaping hole that will do little to control the spread.

Late in the Monaco Grand Prix, Hamilton asked his engineer Riccardo Adami if he was a minute behind the leaders. Adami didn't answer the question the first time, prompting a follow-up from the seven-time champion.

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After crossing the finish line, Hamilton then asked Adami "are you upset with me or something?" to which he did not appear to get an answer.

Speaking to the official F1 website, Vasseur explained there was nothing untoward in the lack of a reply.

"Because when the driver is asking something between turn one and turn three, we have to wait to the tunnel to reply, to avoid to speak with him during the corners," he explained.

"It's not that we are sleeping, it's not that we are having a beer on the pit wall, it's just because we have a section of the track where we agreed before to speak with him.

"And honestly, it's not a tension that the guy is asking something. He's between the walls ... he's under pressure, he's fighting ... he's at 300km/h between the walls and I'm perfectly fine [with it]."

But Vasseur's response does not take into account the fact that the question came after Hamilton had crossed the finish line, 51.3 seconds behind race winner Lando Norris, while he was driving slowly back to the pits.

It was the second notable incident between the pair during the Monaco weekend. Following qualifying on Saturday, Hamilton was slapped with a three-place grid penalty for impeding Max Verstappen late in Q1. Adami had told Hamilton that Verstappen was on a slow-lap and not a fast lap.

After more than a decade working with Peter Bonnington at Mercedes, Hamilton only started working with Adami at the start of the year following his move to Ferrari.

While relationships between a driver and engineer take time to develop, it's not the first time there have been suggestions of tensions between the pair.

In their first race in Melbourne, Hamilton had to ask Adami on several occasions not to talk to him or give him suggestions on when to use different engine modes.

Then in Miami, Hamilton gave a snarky reply following a heated discussion over team orders.

Hamilton and Adami will work together again at this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.