“We’re lucky that Ferrari don’t have a better engine at the minute,\u201d said\u00a0McLaren<\/a>\u2019s Lando Norris<\/a>, the defending world champion, after finishing third in last weekend\u2019s Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix.\u00a0\u201cIf they had a better engine they’re dominating. They’re the class of the field in terms of cornering performance at the minute and we’re not even close to them.\u00a0It’s the realistic point of it, we’re a long, long way from where we need to be. If they make improvements on the engine side, then they’ll embarrass everyone.”<\/p>\n Norris would likely have finished fourth but for Kimi Antonelli<\/a>\u2019s Mercedes<\/a> suffering an as-yet-unexplained engine shutdown. And it was clear that race winner Lewis Hamilton<\/a>\u2019s Ferrari enjoyed a significant pace advantage over the Mercedes and McLarens \u2013 Norris\u2019s team-mate Oscar Piastri<\/a> was a distant fifth.<\/p>\n Ferrari\u2019s uplift has also rattled Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff, who not only pointed out that reliability was something \u201cwe need to get on top of\u201d, but also that the dynamic between his two drivers is \u201ca situation we need to look into\u201d.\u00a0Antonelli and George Russell<\/a> have come close to clashing on track in recent races, potentially jeopardising results.<\/p>\n Points make prizes<\/p>\n After the Monaco Grand\u00a0Prix Hamilton passed Russell for second in the drivers\u2019 standings. He\u2019s now on 115 points to Antonelli\u2019s 156, with Russell on 106. Hamilton\u2019s team-mate Charles Leclerc<\/a> lags on 75 after two catastrophic weekends.<\/p>\n Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari<\/p>\n Photo by: James Sutton \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n So, if Mercedes management is contemplating a change in policy \u2013 from letting its drivers race to, in the words of Wolff, handling \u201ca situation where there’s a pace differential if we are fighting for a victory at the risk of losing a victory\u201d \u2013 might Ferrari have to do the same?<\/p>\n In terms of its current driver line-up, this is a new quandary for the\u00a0Scuderia. Last season Hamilton and Leclerc rarely found themselves fighting for the same piece of on-track real estate.<\/p>\n This year that has changed and, although there have been occasional gripes about close-combat etiquette \u2013 notably in China \u2013 they have generally worked together for the greater good of the team. In Barcelona, where\u00a0Leclerc was out of position because of his qualifying shunt and on a different strategy, he put up no resistance to Hamilton passing on track.<\/p>\n But, as Mercedes is (re)discovering, the dynamic changes once drivers are in a position to be fighting for a championship rather than occasional race wins, and every point could be significant come the end of the season.<\/p>\n The shift at Ferrari has been fascinating. Until recently\u00a0Leclerc has clearly had the upper hand, and Hamilton looked so well beaten that the pundits have been lining up to take easy shots, labelling him a has-been and putting a timeline on his imminent retirement.<\/p>\n While many of the drivers and a substantial portion of the fan base despise the new technical formula, for Hamilton it has been transformative. He much prefers the more communicative nature of the 2026 chassis to the overly stiff, heavy, and often unpredictable products of the recent ground-effect era.<\/p>\n Hamilton has always liked to brake late and hard, turning in later too, taking a cornering trajectory more along the lines of a hard \u2018U\u2019 than a soft \u2018V\u2019. He has a remarkable feel for how to modulate the brake pedal, not just on application but also on release, to help the car turn.<\/p>\n Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari<\/p>\n Photo by: Dimitar Dilkoff \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n Throughout the ground-effect era he struggled with a car concept defined by the need to run the chassis as close to the ground as possible to maximise downforce. This dictated stiff suspension with increasingly extreme anti-dive and anti-lift geometries which sapped the feel he thrives on.<\/p>\n Coupled with that, during the first year at Ferrari Hamilton struggled with the abruptness of the engine braking, a characteristic\u00a0Leclerc was able to manage \u2013 even use to help the car turn \u2013 because he was more accustomed to it. Among the low points of the year was the Hungarian GP, where Leclerc qualified on pole and Hamilton didn\u2019t even make the top 10.\u00a0“The team has no problem \u2013 you’ve seen the car’s on pole,\u201d said Hamilton afterwards.\u00a0“So we probably need to change driver.”<\/p>\n Against this background, though, Hamilton was seeking change within the organisation \u2013 importantly, with the full support of team principal Frederic\u00a0Vasseur. During the Belgian Grand Prix weekend, ahead of the summer break, he alluded to the sheer volume of documents he had been compiling and sending to senior management.<\/p>\n Read Also:<\/p>\n \u201cI held a lot of meetings,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve called on lots of meetings with the heads of the team, so I\u2019ve called on John [Elkann, executive chairman], Benedetto [Vigna, CEO] and Fred in several meetings. I\u2019ve sat with the head of our car development, Lo\u00efc [Serra], also the heads of different departments, talking about engines for next year and about front suspension for next year, rear suspension \u2013 things that you want, issues that I have with this car.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I\u2019ve sent documents, done through the year. After the first few races I did a full document for the team, then during this break I did another two documents. Some of it is structural adjustments we need to make as a team in order to get better in all the areas we want to improve.<\/p>\n \u201cThe other was about the current issues I have with this car. There are some things you do want to take onto next year\u2019s car and some you need to work on changing. I tried the \u201926 car for the first time [in the sim] and started work on that, and the engineers come into the room and you sit and debrief with them, every single one of them. So a big, big push.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m challenging everyone at the team, particularly the guys at the top. If you look at the team for the last 20 years, they have had some amazing drivers \u2013 Fernando [Alonso], Kimi [Raikkonen], Sebastian [Vettel].<\/p>\n \u201cAmazing drivers but they didn\u2019t win a title \u2013 and I refuse to have that happen with me. If you do the same things you have the same results, so I\u2019m challenging everything. They are very responsive.\u201d<\/p>\n Read Also:<\/p>\n Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari<\/p>\n Photo by: Clive Rose \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n Opportunity knocks<\/p>\n Usually when one driver is underperforming relative to the other, a team will naturally gravitate towards the one who is faring best, and their opinion on development matters will carry more weight than the other\u2019s. But Vasseur worked very hard to support Hamilton and shield him from his critics.<\/p>\n Also, the point Hamilton made is accurate and will have resonated with management. There is a famous quote, popularly if incorrectly attributed to Albert Einstein, that the definition of insanity is repeating the same course of action and expecting a different result. Ferrari has had one of the most consistently strong driver line-ups in recent seasons but hasn\u2019t given them consistently the best equipment or slick race operations.<\/p>\n Among the changes, Hamilton wanted more innovation and the SF-26 certainly couldn\u2019t be described as conservative. He also wanted a new race engineer and the relationship with Carlo Santi appears to have exceeded expectations. Santi was shuffled back into a factory-based role after race-engineering Kimi Raikkonen<\/a> during his second Ferrari stint, and it\u2019s understood his initial appointment with Hamilton in place of Riccardo Adami was on a temporary basis. But Hamilton is delighted with the engineer he has described as \u201can Italian \u2018Bono\u201d – his nickname for longtime Mercedes engineer Peter\u00a0Bonnington, now working with Kimi Antonelli<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Him kind of substituting this year, jumping in and diving in deep with me \u2013 we didn’t know each other, we’d never spoken and I didn’t really know anything about him. We met and I think got on straight away,” said Hamilton in Barcelona.\u00a0“It’s great to be able to connect with an engineer other than what I used to have. I had it for such a long time and then you kind of lose that feeling because Bono’s now doing it with Kimi [Antonelli].<\/p>\n “He [Santi] is very, very quiet. You could tell it’s hard for him to express his emotions.\u00a0He’s just smiley and I’m giving him these big hugs and pulling him in, saying ‘thank you’. I like to think that this [race win] has probably reignited the love that he has of being an engineer as he has done for me as a driver.<\/p>\n “The changes that I’ve asked for and pushed for all last year have been made and I now have the right team around me, I now have the right car around me, and now I can start doing what I do best.\u00a0The team have really listened and really worked hard to add performance and be innovative.\u00a0This year is all about innovation. We came out with the bit on the rear exhaust. We came out with, what else was it, the rear wing, the Macarena [pivoting rear wing plane].\u00a0This is what I was asking for last year. It was like, this team has to be the leaders in that, and they’ve shown that they can and they will.”<\/p>\n Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari crosses the finish line<\/p>\n Photo by: Manaure Quintero \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n A brake with tradition<\/p>\n Among the more recent changes which appear to have paid off is to let Hamilton work through putative baseline set-ups with his engineers via existing data rather than evaluating hypothetical set-ups in the simulator. He has been a prominent critic of the relationship between simulator results and real on-track performance.<\/p>\n Leclerc has taken a different view, saying the simulator \u201cworks for me\u201d. Mind you, he said that three race weekends ago and may not offer the same response when asked now.<\/p>\n Hamilton was also granted a major concession ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix weekend in the form of Carbone Industrie brake materials being adopted on his car in place of longtime Ferrari partner Brembo. Hamilton has long been a fan of CIs, believing this gives him the necessary feel he requires.<\/p>\n But if Hamilton has been thriving,\u00a0Leclerc has been floundering in recent races. He is reliably among the fastest drivers on the grid over a single lap, and the gold standard in qualifying. And yet he has put his Ferrari in the wall during Q3 on two consecutive weekends now.<\/p>\n Read Also:<\/p>\n That speaks to a combination of factors nudging him to hustle beyond the car\u2019s limits. In each case, circumstances had contrived to leave him needing that lap to count. Normally you would bank on\u00a0Leclerc to do that, but in both Monaco and Barcelona small errors had major consequences.<\/p>\n Grand\u00a0prix history is rich with examples of previously reliable drivers beginning to push too hard in qualifying when put under pressure by a fast team-mate. Could that be what\u2019s happening here?<\/p>\n In Barcelona\u00a0Leclerc also trialled Carbone Industrie braking materials, a sure sign that he had lost confidence in the previous set-up \u2013 which he blamed for his retirement in Monaco. Very few single factors in car performance prompt a driver to lose their mojo as damagingly as unpredictable braking.<\/p>\n Charles Leclerc, Ferrari<\/p>\n Photo by: Sam Bloxham \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n For years now, Leclerc has been Maranello\u2019s favoured son, and seen as the spiritual heir to marque favourite Gilles Villeneuve. But the reality in F1 is that sentimentality doesn\u2019t win championships.<\/p>\n Mercedes is now having to\u00a0recalibrate its approach to letting its drivers fight on track, especially when circumstances within the race create a performance differential between them. At Ferrari, Vasseur made it clear when he joined that the drivers would have equal status, and that \u201cthe only number one is Ferrari\u201d.<\/p>\n A neat rhetorical flourish, but if Ferrari is to finish number one in the constructors\u2019 championship it needs to maximise its points take from each round. That means\u00a0Leclerc needs to rediscover his mojo urgently.<\/p>\n It also means potentially tough choices ahead for the Ferrari\u00a0pitwall. You might not have had Leclerc being compelled to accept number-two status on your bingo card for this season, but don\u2019t rule it out if Ferrari is to snare a first drivers\u2019 championship since 2007.\u00a0That year, you\u2019ll recall, team orders were outlawed but Ferrari orchestrated its\u00a0pitstops in the final race to swap the running order of its drivers, enabling Raikkonen to win the race and the championship \u2013 by a single point.<\/p>\n Vasseur has already made it clear he is prepared to suspend equality of opportunity, should the need arise.<\/p>\n \u201cIf at one stage we have to take action, I will take action,\u201d he said in his first press conference after becoming Ferrari team principal back in 2023.\u00a0\u201cIt doesn’t matter if it’s one or the other but, if at one stage in the season I have to do something, then I will do it.\u201d<\/p>\n We want to hear from you!<\/p>\n Let us know what you would like to see from us in the future.<\/p>\n![\"Lewis](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781778311_639_lewis-hamilton-ferrari.jpg\")
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