Ferrari Boss Fred Vasseur Welcomes ‘Positive Competition’ Between Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has expressed his support for a healthy rivalry between the team’s new driver pairing, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, as the 2025 Formula 1 season approaches. Vasseur remains confident that the competition between the two drivers will not devolve into internal politics, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a strong team dynamic.

Hamilton, who joined Ferrari from Mercedes during the off-season, and Leclerc, who has been with the Italian team since 2019, have already demonstrated a positive working relationship. “At this part of the season, all the teams are world champions, all the teammates are in their honeymoon, and so on and so on! It’s like this in F1,” Vasseur joked. “But the first weeks of collaboration between the two [drivers] was mega good. I’m not surprised at all, they spent a couple of hours last year during the [pre-race drivers’] parades to discuss. They were able to build up the relationship.”

The Ferrari boss stressed the significance of preserving this relationship and encouraging the drivers to work together for the benefit of the team. “We are starting in very good shape now. The most important thing is to keep this relationship, to continue to work as a team and to push as a team. But I’m quite confident,” he added.

While teammate rivalries in F1 have a history of escalating when a championship is at stake, Vasseur believes that Hamilton and Leclerc can learn from one another and push each other to raise their performance. “It’s always an opportunity and one of the skills of the driver is to try to always improve,” he explained. “A good way to improve is also to take the experience or the performance of your teammates, because the driver is the closest of you and you can have access to the data that you can work with.”

Vasseur emphasized the importance of having two drivers who can consistently deliver strong results, stating, “Honestly, I’m not scared at all with this, because we need to have this kind of emulation. I spoke about it last year between Charles and Carlos [Sainz]. It was already the case, but as a team, if we want to perform, we need to have two drivers performing.”

The French team principal believes that a “positive competition” between Hamilton and Leclerc will be crucial to Ferrari’s success in the upcoming season. “We need to have two drivers in a kind of competition, a positive competition and a positive emulation. And I’m sure that it will be the case,” he concluded.