Ferrari have demanded their drivers race with more respect for each other after they threw away a win in Mexico City. Lewis Hamilton qualified on pole for that race but was challenged for the lead by team-mate Charles Leclerc on lap one. And it went wrong when the Monegasque cut a chicane while fighting to get past the other Ferrari, copping a penalty which dropped him behind Max Verstappen who had taken advantage of the scrap to also muscle past Hamilton, and the Dutchman went on to win.
Hamilton was livid after the race and demanded “serious talks” with Ferrari and Leclerc over how to approach those situations better in future. Team principal Frederic Vasseur was similarly upset and said he saw the incident as a lack of respect for the team’s 2,000-strong workforce.
He used that word again on Friday when asked how his discussions with his drivers went in Sao Paulo this week. Talks were delayed because Leclerc flew back to Europe for the birth of his daughter. But once he returned Vasseur wasted no time before putting him in a room with Hamilton.
Asked how it went, the Frenchman refused to reveal specifics of what was said but was happy to describe the overarching message he drilled into his drivers. He said: “The guidelines are always the same. They are two competitors with a fighting spirit for sure, but they need to have respect for each other.
“But, mainly and firstly, they need to respect the brand, the team, the people working at home, the people working on track. I think we are putting a lot of effort on this and the message was clear and will stay clear.”
Only a few days had passed between that race and media day in Sao Paulo on Thursday, when Hamilton made it clear he was still annoyed about what happened. Among the things he said was to signal his agreement with those who suggested that Leclerc might be racing harder against him than other drivers on the grid.
But Vasseur is not convinced that is the case and used Leclerc’s aggressive battling against Max Verstappen at the United States Grand Prix last month to illustrate his point. The Frenchman said: “He said that he was fighting probably a bit harder with him than with some others, but if you have a look at what Charles did in Austin in the first sector, everybody said that it was magic.
“The line is fine between the two, but he didn’t crash into the other car. For sure, in this situation, we failed collectively because we were one and two and we didn’t win the race at the end. That means that it’s clear that we failed and we have to react.
“But the conclusion of the meeting yesterday evening was clear that it was a clear reminder that the Ferrari is coming first, is coming first for the brand, for the employees, for the Tifosi, and this we have to keep it in mind.”
Vasseur also admitted the problem was always likely to arise when pitting two of the best drivers on the grid against one another in the same team, when they are in a position to fight for trophies. He added: “We have two experienced guys, two competitive guys. It’s four or five races in a row that we are at the front, scoring the highest number of points after Monza and Madrid.
““For sure you have a kind of escalation that you all want to win races, and I think it’s probably the downside of the system is that we have two competitive guys starting each weekend next to each other.
“But I think if we are P2 today, it’s also because we have two guys very, very close, and we have to manage it, but it’s a choice. It’s a choice in the lineup, and I have the positive and the negative, but I will deal with the negative.”