Nico Rosberg has come in defence of his former teammate and championship rival Lewis Hamilton following Ferrari’s intra-team clash at the Mexican Grand Prix last weekend. Rosberg blamed Charles Leclerc for repeatedly causing incidents with his teammate and called on team principal Fred Vasseur to establish clear racing guidelines.
Speaking to Sky Sports F1, the 2016 F1 champion shared his take on the incident, questioning the repeated nature of on-track clashes between the two Ferrari drivers.
“Interestingly, it’s always Charles’ fault, isn’t it?” Rosberg said. “It’s never Lewis’s fault.
“In the last couple of times, in Monza it was Charles, here it was Charles. Really, Fred Vasseur, he needs to start to act.”
Starting from first (Hamilton) and third (Leclerc), the Ferrari drivers found themselves fighting for the lead of the race from Turn 1 onwards on the opening lap in Mexico.
Both drivers went wheel-to-wheel, with Leclerc eventually coming out ahead after cutting across the grass in Turn 4. The incident proved costly for Hamilton, who had started from pole but subsequently lost second place to Max Verstappen.
Nico Rosberg believes the Ferrari boss must intervene to prevent similar incidents between his drivers in the future.
“Once again, as Lewis said before the race, there was no discussion,” Rosberg said. “Like clear racing guidelines between the two. It needs to happen, otherwise it’s going to keep going like this.”
Nico Rosberg Warns Ferrari Against Letting Drivers Settle Scores on Track
The former Mercedes driver also warned that allowing the drivers to resolve their disagreements on track could create an even bigger problem for Ferrari.
The 2016 champion believes that if Hamilton and Leclerc start ignoring team instructions and taking matters into their own hands, the situation could deteriorate rapidly.
“It gets really bad when the drivers take it in their own hands and disregard whatever has been discussed and just take it in their own hands and sort it out on track and barge the other guy out the way. That can very quickly happen, and it’s already kind of happening,” Rosberg said.
“On the first wheel-to-wheel that they had at Turns 2 and 3, Charles was bouncing over the kerb into Lewis; he was not holding the line. So already that was too much from Charles.”
Fred Vasseur Left Frustrated After Losing the Chance of a 1–2 Finish
Ferrari boss admitted that missing the potential victory and a chance to secure a 1-2 result for the team was difficult to accept, considering the position they were in at the start of the race.
“It’s a lot of frustration for me, but I’m not the most important – it’s a lot of frustration for the 2,000 people working for the project. And this I will need time to digest,” Vasseur said.
After the opening lap drama, Hamilton eventually had to settle for second place, while Leclerc finished fourth after serving a five-second penalty for cutting the racetrack and keeping his gained advantage.
Vasseur ultimately thinks that it is a matter of having respect for the team and the hard work of people who put in enormous amounts of work in the background. It remains to be seen if there is any change in the way the Ferrari pair battles each other for the remainder of the 2026 season.
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