It’s the simmering beef that refuses to go away. After a Mexican Grand Prix where the prancing honse turned a 1-2 after three corners into a 2-4, Lewis Hamilton has continued his media campaign against teammate Charles Leclerc in Brazil. He made the claim that Charles races him harder as a teammate than he does his other rivals. A bit of an accidental low-blow given Charles had to skip media duties due to the birth of his new daughter Bianca, but alas.
It led to the usual fleet of pundits like Ralf Schumacher and Damon Hill chiming in. Damon in particular caught my eye, saying that if Ferrari backs Lewis 100%, they’ll win a Championship. A bold claim for a team on an 18-year dry spell.
So… should he be? Does have a divine right to spearhead Ferrari into the future as their #1 driver? Let’s break it down.
Just How Good Is Hamilton Right Now?
Still pretty good. And he needed to be this year because fair questions were being asked about him entering 2026. Safe to say, Lewis Hamilton wasn’t very fond of the Ground Effect era. 2022 was the year Mercedes fell from grace and he had a fairly close season with George Russell, his first year in the big leagues. But I hear the mitigating argument, Lewis became the guinea pig and was testing many more aggressive layouts in an attempt to fix the car’s horrendous porpoising before Technical Directive 36 came in. He bounced back in 2023 with an excellent season, second only to Max Verstappen’s and his 19-win reign of terror. But his final season in Brackley was… grim. Russell blew him out 20-10 across the 30 “races” of that season, and 24-6 in Quali sessions.
His first year in red was tough. Leclerc had him 18-3 in races both finished and finished 86 points in front. But Lewis has absolutely raised his game in 2026, here’s where they’re at heading into Interlagos:
| Charles Leclerc | Driver | Lewis Hamilton |
| 1 | Wins | 1 |
| 13 (Average Margin: 0.04) | Finished Ahead – Quali | 12 |
| 12 | Finished Ahead – Races | 13 |
| 3 | DNF’s | 1 |
| 245 | Points | 259 |
Sprints are included in that by the way, even if their sporting merit’s only worth about ⅓ of a GP’s in terms of points. In terms of the DNF’s, Charles had his mistake at Monza, a hydraulics failure in Barcelona and the Monaco race, which if we go by his word, was a brake failure. Lewis had his at the Madring.
Again, some mitigation is required. It seems Lewis pushed hard for a brake system change around the time of the Japanese Grand Prix, going under the table of their 50 year partnership with Brembo to switch to Carbon Industries. Lewis has also said he’s had more of a hand in the 2026 car’s development around pre-season testing, but that’s always murky ground because we just don’t know and can’t quantify how much input a driver has when it comes to the behind-the-scenes development of a car. But of course, we give the driver all the credit if they win with it! (Seriously, when was the last time you saw James Allison praised for the multiple title winners he designed on social media? Adrian Newey seems to be the exception that proves the rule)
Personally, on raw speed, I think Charles might have a tenth at their very best at this point in their careers. All things being equal… They’re virtually identical. Maybe you raise an eyebrow at Charles’ relative performance from ‘25 to ‘26, but the change of going from ground-effect cars to this year’s regulation set has led to wild swings across the elite runners (Oscar Piastri, the change of form at Mercedes between Russell and Antonelli, etc.)
Your Reputation Precedes You
So on the above numbers, I don’t think Lewis has done enough to warrant #1 treatment. He’d have to be putting Charles away far more convincingly for me to warrant that, even when the gap was almost at its biggest after Monza (36, it peaked at 40 after Barcelona). This was also the same weekend that Lewis really started turning up the wick in the media in regards to demanding the team push towards his title campaign. At the time he was 76 points behind Antonelli who had just won his seventh race of the season from 18th on the grid. I’ll put that one down as… optimistic. Then the Madring happened and that was the end of that discussion. It was a move about as subtle as a sledgehammer to say that he wants to tear this team down and rebuild it in his image.
If you’re making Lewis the #1, you’re doing it based on his reputation as a 100+ win, seven-time World Champion. And Ferrari made its bed by making that move while still having a clear #1 driver in its ranks already by proxy because Charles was comfortably better than Carlos Sainz was when they were teammates. Charles has had one losing season as a driver in F1, to Sainz, and it was by 5 1⁄2 points.
John Elkann wanted to make the big power play. Lewis Hamilton’s speed, expertise, and marketing clout in red. You don’t make the man pose in front of an F40 looking like a Mafia boss, in front of Enzo’s house (With eight open windows, purely coincidental I’m sure), to then come in to slice oranges as a #2. Yes, Charles by comparison only has 9 wins in his eight seasons in red, but I suspect Charles would have a lot more if you gave him at least ten cars that have won Championships like Lewis has had. To date, Charles has had… zero.
Despite the optics of what Ferrari has done, they still have an even-driver policy as far as we’re aware. There’s been niggling issues from the start of their tenure, like Miami last year when Lewis exploded on the radio because the pitwall was reluctant to move Charles to one side, but I think the three catalysts that have really gotten us here are:
- Charles in Zandvoort when he and Lewis were on different strats and didn’t step aside (Thanks, Charlotte)
- Lap 1 of Monza, where Lewis dove at Charles at Turn 1, and Charles ran Lewis off the track
- Mexico, and Turn 4… all of that shit
There’s still a lot of thoughts in my head after that race, and here’s some of them. We as an audience are very wishy-wishy with our general stance on “team play” in a sport where individual drivers are put on plinths in every way. Ferrari have nothing to play for this season now besides the “prestigious mantle” of Championship runner-up spots as drivers and teams.
Charles didn’t ruin a team 1-2 in Mexico. He was trying to race his teammate for the lead. He’s allowed to do that. And say what you will about whether he should or shouldn’t have gone for it, it shouldn’t have influenced Lewis into his mistake either. Both are responsible for being here because I don’t think they trust each other as drivers.
For Lewis’ claims that Charles races him harder… I don’t think there’s conclusive evidence for it. I can remember the rest of the Mexican GP where Charles defended pretty robustly against Lando with a significant flatspot for 25 laps, but I suspect some will dismiss that due to the nature of the track and the extreme delta needed to pass. But I also remember his battles with Verstappen in 2022 like Bahrain and Saudi Arabia that were firm, but fair. Or his pass on Russell at Zandvoort that became their Secret Santa joke.
The worst of it I can remember was Sebastian Vettel from 2019-20 but I don’t think those incidents occurred because Seb specifically was his teammate. By all accounts, they got along well. And if your best even light example is from six years ago, I’d be prepared to call it an outlier.
And one last note – Fred Vasseur needs to make more uncomfortable decisions on the pit wall. He’s let his new signing vent his spleen for nearly an entire week straight making some very strong accusations against his teammate and Fred has largely sat on his hands. Do they need rules of engagement? And if they do, that’s a tad embarrassing for the debatable GOAT and one of the best drivers in the world. I worry Fred will be the fall guy if flashpoints keep happening, regardless.
Ultimately, to answer the question – Ferrari had every intention of making Lewis Hamilton their #1 when they made the decision to go all-in on him. This is a team that’s had fully grown adults born since their last major title. The problem is, I’m not fully sure Lewis is still good enough to demand the treatment. His last title winning season was six years ago, five if you’re the sort of person who gets off on Twitter dickheadery. His last truly great season was three years ago. And I have to answer this question by asking another – If he’s still that great, why can’t he keep Charles Leclerc out of the picture?
