Lewis Hamilton Demands Ferrari ‘Change’ How It Handles His Battles With Charles Leclerc After Monza Meltdown

• Lewis Hamilton says Ferrari “have got to change things” in how the team manages his battles with Charles Leclerc after their Monza collision course
• Hamilton and Leclerc went side by side at the first chicane before Leclerc crashed heavily at Parabolica on lap two, leaving Hamilton to salvage sixth
• Team principal Fred Vasseur says it was “too early” to pick a lead driver before Monza but the team now has time to discuss it

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Hamilton Wants Ferrari to Pick a Side, and He’s Not Being Quiet About It

Lewis Hamilton has called on Ferrari “to change things” in how it manages the fight between him and Charles Leclerc, after a first-lap clash at Monza wrecked both of their afternoons in front of the Tifosi.

The Italian Grand Prix weekend is the biggest of the year for Ferrari, and the Tifosi have grown used to a rollercoaster of highs and lows at their home race over the decades. This year’s version promised much, with Leclerc and Hamilton alongside each other on the second row. Instead, Hamilton went side by side with Leclerc at the first chicane, found the gravel and dropped down the order, while Leclerc crashed heavily at the Parabolica two laps later. Hamilton fought back to sixth by the finish, a result he described as devastating. Now he wants Ferrari to settle, once and for all, how it handles moments like that one.

‘I Don’t Race Dirty’

Ferrari’s upgraded power unit for Monza had raised hopes of a genuine home fight, and the second row start only added to the expectation inside the team. Asked directly about the first corner incident, Hamilton defended his own driving without hesitation.

“Look, I don’t race dirty. I’ve always raced clean and fairly and always left space, so I don’t think they should be worried about me,” Hamilton said. “I mean, I’ve come into the team and tried to be respectful of space and definitely not put the team in jeopardy. I stand by that and that’s all I can talk about on my side. You have to speak to Fred about the other side and the decisions that are taken there, but I’ll keep pushing and trying to get more from the team and from our car and from the engineers and design and everything like that.”

It is not the first time Hamilton and Leclerc have run into each other’s way this year. The two battled hard in China, and Hamilton was audibly frustrated over team radio in the Netherlands after Leclerc, running a different strategy, held him up in a spot that could have cost him a podium. Hamilton’s maiden Ferrari win in Barcelona and four further podiums this season have put him in direct competition with Leclerc more often, not less, and Sunday’s clash was the sharpest example yet.

‘It Starts With Fred’

Hamilton pointed the finger squarely at how Ferrari organises itself from the top down, drawing a pointed comparison to Mercedes, who have managed team orders between Antonelli and Russell even while both fight for the title.

“Ultimately, it comes from the top,” Hamilton said. “It trickles down the decisions, and so it starts with Fred. There’s only so much you can say, so much you can push and shout from the mountain top. Yesterday I said that we’ve got to look at just how we communicate, because if we continue to travel the same path, we get the same result. And it’s like, we keep getting the same result. We’ve got to change things, because this is not helping us to move forward. I think they were receptive to it and we’ll take it offline, probably not for next week, but particularly after the next race to try and look how we can procedurally do things different so the same thing can’t keep happening.”

Vasseur Isn’t Ready to Pick a Number One

Team principal Fred Vasseur declined to relitigate the first-lap incident in detail, saying he had not yet spoken with both drivers, but he addressed the wider question of prioritising one driver’s title bid over the other’s races.

“For sure, the outcome of Turn 1 and 2 is not good for the team,” Vasseur said. “Now to see if we have a team order or whatever, I think that the good comparison that I made was that last year Piastri was the leading McLaren at this stage of the season, and if McLaren put everything on Piastri, Max Verstappen would have been champion. But for sure, at one stage you have to take a decision. But I think it was too early to take a decision before Monza. Now we have time to discuss with the guys.”

Vasseur also pointed to a straight line speed deficit that made Sunday harder than the first lap incident alone suggests, with Ferrari’s upgraded power unit still short of what McLaren and Mercedes carry down Monza’s long straights. “It means that it was quite impossible for us to attack or to defend,” he said. “Or when we are attacking someone, we are draining the battery, and next straight line we are losing the position. And it was more than the pace. I think we were a little bit in a corner with the strategy, honestly. We were just stuck with the top speed.”

Ferrari’s Real Problem Might Be Power, Not Politics

Vasseur was careful not to blame the on-track collision entirely on driver management, pointing instead to a deeper power unit shortfall that made the whole weekend harder than it needed to be, regardless of how the first corner had gone.

“I don’t want to give details,” Vasseur said when pressed on the specifics. “But when you have a lack of pure power, then you start to play with deployment to try to compensate in one straight line, but if you deploy more somewhere, for sure you will deploy less somewhere else, and then you are going in the wrong spiral to try to play with this when you are fighting. Honestly, it’s not about deployment. I think deployment it was okay-ish. Even McLaren they were playing a little bit Friday and Saturday morning. At the end, we are missing pure power.”

That admission changes how Hamilton’s demand for change should be read. If Ferrari’s straight line weakness, not just its handling of two title-calibre drivers, is what turned Sunday into a damage limitation exercise, then no amount of team order clarity fixes the raw pace problem underneath it.

Ferrari now heads to Madrid for the inaugural Spanish Grand Prix at the new Madring circuit, a layout Vasseur believes suits the SF-26 better than Monza did, though he was reluctant to set expectations before reviewing the weekend in full. Whether that closes the gap on track is one question. Whether Ferrari can settle how it handles Hamilton and Leclerc before the next flashpoint is the one Hamilton has now put squarely on the team to answer.

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More F1 Reading

• Kimi Antonelli Calls Stunning Monza Win From 19th on the Grid a ‘Dream Coming True’
• Lewis Hamilton Calls Monza Result ‘Devastating’ as Ferrari’s Home Race Falls Apart at Turn 2
• Charles Leclerc Breaks Down His Heartbreaking Monza Exit and the ‘Way Too Close’ Clash With Hamilton
• Lando Norris Says Piastri Battle Was ‘Fair’ as McLaren Salvage Fourth and Fifth at Monza

Written by

Jack Renn

Jack Renn is an editor at F1 Chronicle and a veteran motorsport journalist with 25 years of experience covering Formula 1 and international motorsport. A member of the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive (AIPS), the global body representing accredited sports journalists, Jack has spent his career reporting from paddocks and press rooms across the F1 calendar. His work spans race analysis, technical insight, and in-depth features, giving readers authoritative coverage grounded in decades of firsthand experience at the highest level of the sport.

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