A Ferrari 1-2 thrown away? Our verdict on latest Leclerc-Hamilton spat

Did the Ferrari Formula 1 team cost itself Mexican Grand Prix victory with Charles Leclerc’s first lap attack on team-mate Lewis Hamilton?

Here’s our take on what unfolded at Mexico City.

Ferrari's sleepwalked into this 

Josh Suttill

Ferrari appears to have missed the giant red flag of Monza: if you let your drivers race each other hard on lap one, it’s going to cost you. 

Ferrari was 1-2 on the approach to Turn 1 in Mexico and it could have controlled the race thereafter. 

Instead Leclerc and Hamilton battled each other like it was a final round title decider and handed victory to Max Verstappen’s Red Bull.

Both went too far in Turn 4 - if Hamilton hadn’t gone off the track he wouldn’t have lost out to Verstappen. And Leclerc wasn’t anywhere near making the corner. 

Ferrari can’t keep letting them race like this because they’ve now repeatedly proved they can’t do it without gifting places to rivals. 

Ferrari just can't trust its drivers

Scott Mitchell-Malm

I don't see how Ferrari can trust its drivers. They've had three significant flashpoints in the second half of the season - with this being the most severe of all, given it has cost Ferrari a race victory. It certainly opened the door to Verstappen. 

First there was low-key tension at Zandvoort, when Leclerc rejected a team instruction to move aside for Hamilton on a different strategy. That was selfish and unnecessary. 

Then came the clash on the opening lap at Monza - too busy trying to race each other hard, Leclerc eventually crowding an optimistic Hamilton into the gravel exiting the first chicane. Stupid and needless at Ferrari's home race. 

Now this. Both were in the wrong to a degree, Leclerc racing his team-mate unnecessarily hard - Hamilton just about went off, but Leclerc wasn't making that corner in a million attempts at that speed.

Wins are rare for Ferrari in F1, it's been a tough season - and Leclerc's had a particularly challenging campaign compared to Hamilton. So I get why he's trying. He absolutely should try. But there's got to be more common sense than that. 

Unfortunately it is now a clear pattern. Repeat instances where they (Leclerc especially) have put themselves before the team hurt Ferrari's results, damage the chemistry between the drivers, erode trust and cause needless scrutiny and controversy for a team that's under the magnifying glass more than any other. 

It's self-destructive on a micro level because it's hard to see how a Ferrari doesn't win this race without that act of sabotage at Turn 4 but on a macro level there's a more fundamental problem given the bigger picture. 

They are at risk of seriously, potentially fatally, undermining Fred Vasseur's leadership. He is the reason Leclerc trusts the project. He brought Hamilton into the team. 

If they won't behave for him, will they ever be able to behave for Ferrari?

This was inexcusable

Jon Noble

You would have thought that Ferrari would have learned its lessons from Monza – where Leclerc and Hamilton effectively blew their race at the first chicane.

This time they got as far as Turn 4, with the pair outbraking themselves and leaving the open door for Max Verstappen to come through and take a brilliant win.

Keeping things fair and giving both your drivers an equal chance to fight for wins is the right thing to do, but that stance cannot come if it also means risking throwing away wins.

It is inexcusable for this to have happened now when Monza two months ago exposed an underlying tension already that needed nipping in the bud.

Leclerc and Hamilton's desperation to not concede at Turn 4 appears to have foundations in a lack of trust in each other, and perhaps an unwillingness of team management to intervene, and is something that needs to be addressed because at some point it won’t just be wins Ferrari is throwing away - it is the sort of thing that costs you titles.

It was Hamilton who blew it

Jack Benyon

This Ferrari loss was ultimately Hamilton's fault, for me. Although we'll never know if he could have held off a charging Verstappen if he’d stayed in front at the start.

If Hamilton hadn't run wide in his duel with Leclerc on lap one, he would have been in the lead and in control of the race. OK, maybe Leclerc should have been told not to fight so hard, but in the absence of any Ferrari racing rules, Hamilton has to race Leclerc like anyone else.

Even if there were rules in place, you have to be ready for the team-mate to break them. F1 history tells us that!

If Hamilton hadn't made that mistake, he'd have been ahead after that exchange.

I have so much respect for Hamilton, but he spent far too much of the race posturing on the radio, and in actual fact he should have taken responsibility for his role in the incident.

Ferrari can't race like it has nothing to lose

Matt Beer

With its title hopes long since over, you could argue Ferrari has nothing to lose now so its drivers should just go for broke individually at the remaining races.

But given how long it’s been since this team won any titles, given the overwhelming pressure around Ferrari anytime it does anything disappointing (which is most of the time since the mid-2000s), it needs unity, discipline and smooth, harmonious, race execution now.

It had everything in its hands to finish 1-2 in this race. It needed a plan to ensure it ended the first lap poised to achieve that, and it needed to know it could trust its drivers to follow that plan. It had none of that.

A penalty conundrum

Gary Anderson

When you don’t have a clearly defined number one driver and your two drivers are fairly equal pace-wise you are always vulnerable to these situations.

We've seen it between Senna and Prost, Mansell and Piquet, Hamilton and Rosberg, Norris and Piastri, even Verstappen and Ricciardo before Red Bull realised without this clear definition you lose more than you gain.

We have seen it on many occasions that Ferrari is fairly slow - and to add to that weak - at pitlane strategy decision making. The problem in this race was that both Leclerc and Hamilton went off track exiting Turn 4, however Hamilton did make the apex of Turn 5 on the track, whereas Leclerc didn’t bother and clearly opened up an advantage, so a five-second penalty for that is justified.

However what it doesn’t make up for is the time loss that Hamilton suffered by having to run that first part of the race in dirty air whilst Leclerc could run out front in clean air.

I don’t know what you do about that other than the penalty being applied immediately while on track, so basically in this instance if the driver himself or team doesn’t request its driver to give up the gained position or gained time by the point the FIA have made its decision, then you have to give up that applied penalty time loss by the next time you cross the start-finish line.

If that means you lose more positions, then so be it.

What is a little more worrying is that Leclerc didn’t seem to learn anything from that initial episode and was just as or even more aggressive at the restart after the red flag.

Maranello - or wherever they will have their Monday post-race debrief - will be a bit exciting.

It goes so much deeper than this incident

Eden Hannigan

I have been fairly consistent in thinking that Ferrari has been subpar in the handling of its two ultra-competitive drivers. However, in its defence for today’s debacle, the issue it's normally presented with is trying to figure out which of Leclerc and Hamilton is faster when the race is already well underway.

I can get behind the sentiment that what Leclerc did on the first lap was extremely silly and deserved to be penalised. He also deserves a talking to from Ferrari for extinguishing any hopes of what could have been a 1-2 finish from his reckless move.  

I also support Hamilton’s general criticisms over the radio and rightly pointing out that five seconds in clean air is next to nothing as a penalty. It does feel like it was deeper for Hamilton than just this incident, hence the fixation even after the pitstops had taken place. 

It got to a point where the constant messages started to grate on me and I just thought ‘can this not wait until after the race?’ Then again, if it was a sign of deeper frustrations, maybe it’s just Hamilton’s way of showing that he won’t be content until Ferrari stops its habit of self-sabotaging.