“Something Has Gone Seriously Wrong!” — Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc Talks Mouthed at Ferrari as F1 Giants Fail to Race Like Mercedes, Sparking Fresh Questions Over the Team’s…

Ferrari‘s failure to move the slower Charles Leclerc out of Hamilton’s way quickly enough during the race irritated the Brit and, after the race, he said the incident cost him a shot at a podium finish. He also pointed at Mercedes‘ execution in ruthlessly telling George Russell to move aside for Kimi Antonelli, which got them a double podium ahead of him, as an example of where he thinks Ferrari are lacking.

F1 engineer-turned F1 TV pundit Ruth Buscombe is not sure Hamilton was correct about being on for second place if Ferrari had been quicker, but she has pointed out that, even back when she was an engineer working at Maranello a decade ago, the Scuderia have a different priority to most of their rivals when it comes to what they are fighting for on track.

“When you reconstruct a race, there’s always an element of subjectivity in there, but let’s say it meant that it went from being a good chance to being zero,” she told Express Sport, via OLBG, in reference to Hamilton’s claim that a podium finish was on.

What’s clear right now is that Ferrari are not racing – rightly or wrongly, because it’s their train set, and they can do with it what they want – but they’re not racing the same way that Mercedes are.”

Referencing her own personal experience with Ferrari’s approach, Buscome explained: “I was very lucky to be taught how to win a championship in the halls of Ferrari, where their number one mantra was, ‘We exist to win the drivers’ championship’. Yes, the prize money isn’t given out on that, but that’s where the prestige, the feeling, the emotion, the passion is, at least that’s the way that Ferrari sees it.”

Mercedes, meanwhile, have made it clear that the constructors’ championship is their first priority. Protecting that title is Toto Wolff‘s number one aim and, beyond that, he could not care less which of his drivers is crowned champion, with the obvious caveat that he wants it to be one of his. At the moment, Antonelli has a significant advantage on that front, 59 points clear of Russell and Hamilton heading into this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix.

Both Hamilton and Leclerc are desperate to win the title for Ferrari, though Buscombe wonders whether the best approach might be for the two of them to strike a deal behind the scenes rather than taking points off each other. She added: “[Lewis] is ahead on points to Charles.

“A Ferrari of old, the kind of Ferrari that I grew up in, I think the Mercedes that we’re seeing at the race now, that team’s decision would have been to build a five-second gap between the two drivers, so Lewis would get the points.

But, again, there’s a concept of, ‘Not my monkeys, not my circus’, from the outside. They might have their reasons why they are not operating like this. One thing we can say objectively is what Lewis said: it’s difficult as a driver to see Mercedes operating differently to the way that we are operating.

“They’re not making the same calls. Are they tough calls? Yes. Is it something that you need to have a conversation with? Maybe Lewis and Charles need to say, ‘Look, can you help me win this thing this year? And I’ll get you one next year’. I don’t know what the conversations are that have it.

“I was very lucky to be in an environment where it was that old-school Ferrari mentality. You’ve got Michael [Schumacher] pulling Rubens [Barrichello] up onto the podium because he was the one that deserved to be first. You had [Fernando] Alonso saying how much Felipe [Massa] was the only reason that he was in contention for the championship, and a whole team of people where it was very clear there wasn’t a decision that needed to be made, almost.