The Italian Grand Prix is probably the worst venue for a spat to brew up between team-mates but that is what happened at Monza as Lewis Hamilton finished a distant sixth after Charles Leclerc barged him into the gravel on the opening lap.
Leclerc then spun off into the Parabolica barrier at high speed at the end of the second lap, inducing a red flag. The outcome of the weekend was that Hamilton lost more ground to Mercedes team-mates Kimi Antonelli and George Russell in the title race, while Ferrari slipped 122 points behind Mercedes in the constructors’ standings.
Antonelli is now 66 points ahead of Russell and 76 clear of Hamilton, while Leclerc lies fifth, 112 points adrift of Antonelli.
Hamilton has been critical of Ferrari’s execution on several occasions this year, especially when dealing with team orders in scenarios where the drivers are on different strategies. In the Dutch GP, he felt a podium finish was left on the table when the team appeared to dither over how to get Leclerc out of his way at a point where Hamilton was running faster on fresher tyres.
Hamilton clearly feels that he should have been prioritised, given he is closer to the Mercedes drivers than Leclerc in the drivers’ championship, but the opportunity has slipped away.
Hamilton spoke frankly about his championship prospects after finishing sixth in Monza
Photo by: Getty Images
“I think from today, we’ve just lost so much ground to them [Mercedes] on points,” he told media including Motorsport.com at Monza.
“It’s far too late for those decisions to come. It’s many, many weeks too late.
“All I can do is just try and turn up. I’ll get up tomorrow morning and I’ll give it my best. Ultimately today, I feel massively gutted for the tifosi, who showed up for us today.
“The guys back at the factory, who really, really are giving it everything. You know yesterday we didn’t really execute that well. I think the same today.
“It’s tough. I’m giving it everything I can, but sometimes it’s just not enough. You need all the other stuff to come together.
Ferrari might not have had a car quick enough to challenge for outright victory at Monza, but it made the job of maximising it potential needlessly difficult. Throughout qualifying it struggled to orchestrate its drivers to provide a slipstream for one another – essential at this circuit, given the number of straights – to the point where Hamilton was almost eliminated in Q2.
In his first Q3 run, Hamilton was sent out of the pits late, so he struggled to pick up a slipstream from the cars ahead. He did obtain a tow from Leclerc on his second run and lined up just behind his team-mate on the grid as they were promoted to third and fourth by Oscar Piastri’s impeding penalty.
Hamilton appeared to get his nose ahead on the inside line into Turn 1, then was still ahead at Turn 2 only for Leclerc to push him wide, onto the gravel. Leclerc held on to third while Hamilton dropped to 10th.
After the race, Leclerc framed the incident in terms of mutual responsibility, saying, “we went too far”. But Hamilton saw otherwise – although taking the inside line into the first part of this chicane tends to put the driver on the outside line into the left-hander that follows, inviting collisions such as this.
Diversion via the gravel dropped Hamilton to P10
Photo by: Getty Images
“I was ahead in Turn 2. By the apex, I was ahead. There was no ‘we’ in it.
“Look, I don’t race dirty. I’ve always raced clean and fairly and always left space.
“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 all I can talk about is on my side. You have to speak to Fred [Vasseur, team principal] about the other side and decisions that are taken there.
“Ultimately it comes from the top. It trickles down, decisions. 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 we’ve got to look at how we communicate. If we continue to travel the same path, we get the same result.
“We keep getting the same result. We’ve got to change things because it’s not helping us move forward. I think they’re receptive to it and we’ll take it offline over the next, probably not next week, but particularly after the next race, to try and look at how we can procedurally make things different so that the same thing can’t happen.
“I think the guys in the factory are doing a really great job. We’re not executing as cleanly as well as we can. Easily not as well as now the other teams are. But we were at some points in the season.”
Executing team orders is a challenging proposition for Ferrari, given Leclerc’s status within the organisation. It’s understood that his management was instrumental in Vasseur’s appointment, having convinced senior management that regime change was required when Mattia Binotto was team principal.
But if team-mates take points off one another, the damage can extend beyond the race to the drivers’ title. The constructors’ trophy may be less important to fans, but the order of that championship determines the team’s share of the commercial revenues. Indiscipline can therefore have a direct effect on the balance sheet.
“I think it comes down to rules of engagement,” said Hamilton.
“When I was at Mercedes, we had a written rule of engagement. We never really had it too bad. Maybe moments with me and Nico [Rosberg] a couple of times. But more often than not it was good.
“Here, there are no rules.”
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– The Autosport.com Team
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