David Coulthard believes Ferrari is likely to have rules governing Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc already embedded within the drivers’ contracts, as questions continue over how the team should manage its high-profile pairing following their tense moment at the Italian Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc are now in their second season as Ferrari teammates. Lewis Hamilton joined from Mercedes, moving to the most successful team in Formula 1 history, while Charles Leclerc has raced for the Maranello team since 2019 after progressing through Ferrari’s junior programme. Charles Leclerc achieved the stronger results last season, but Lewis Hamilton has raised his level this year and currently leads their internal battle.
Hamilton-Leclerc tension after the Monza incident
Their working relationship came under scrutiny during the Italian Grand Prix when, at the start of the race, Charles Leclerc appeared to push Lewis Hamilton towards the outside, sending the British driver onto the gravel. The incident prompted suggestions that Ferrari should establish a clear number-one driver in an attempt to recover ground against Mercedes and Kimi Antonelli.
The development added another chapter to the season-long Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton head-to-head, with the two Ferrari drivers increasingly central to discussions over how the team should manage its championship ambitions.
After the Monza race, Lewis Hamilton insisted that adopting a collaborative approach to reduce Mercedes’ advantage had already come too late. Both drivers subsequently played down the significance of the first-lap incident, although it remains the most obvious moment of tension between them so far.
David Coulthard rejects the idea of a Ferrari number one driver
Former Formula 1 driver David Coulthard firmly dismissed the possibility of Ferrari simply choosing one driver over the other. Speaking on the Up to Speed podcast, David Coulthard argued that the team has little realistic choice but to manage both drivers as effectively as possible.
“I don’t think that’s an option for them. Ferrari have Lewis Hamilton and they have Charles Leclerc, who has been there for several years, is incredibly fast and is kind of the poster boy for a racing driver. Handsome, he’s got the family, a baby on the way, a dog in the paddock… in my opinion, it’s a bit much, frankly. It’s not a weekend picnic, it’s a Formula 1 Grand Prix, it’s serious business. It’s dangerous business, but maybe that’s because I come from an older generation. They have no choice. They have hired two of the best drivers in the world. Then you manage them in the best way possible.”
That view reflects the complexity Ferrari faces with two drivers carrying significant status inside the team. Lewis Hamilton arrived at Maranello as a seven-time world champion, while Charles Leclerc has long been a central figure in the Scuderia’s project. The latest developments involving the British driver can be followed through the Lewis Hamilton Ferrari news section, while the Monegasque driver’s season is covered in the Charles Leclerc news section.
Could Ferrari’s rules of engagement be written into the contracts?
David Coulthard also offered his view on whether formal rules of engagement are likely to exist within Ferrari. When asked about the subject, the former Formula 1 driver suggested that some form of contractual mechanism probably already covers situations in which the drivers receive instructions from senior members of the team.
“I suspect they exist. Somewhere in the contract it will say that the driver has to follow fair and reasonable instructions from a senior member of the team. It’s quite a generic clause that exists in all contracts, otherwise you could hire a driver and he could just do whatever he wanted. You couldn’t fire him because you wouldn’t have a clause saying, ‘Look, you’re not behaving properly.’”
David Coulthard’s argument is therefore not that Ferrari necessarily has a detailed set of corner-by-corner racing rules written explicitly into the contracts. Rather, he suspects that broader contractual clauses requiring drivers to comply with fair and reasonable team instructions provide the framework Ferrari can use when managing Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc on track.
For the Scuderia, the challenge remains finding the right balance between allowing two elite drivers to race and protecting the interests of the team. The Monza incident showed how quickly that balance can come under scrutiny, but David Coulthard’s position is clear: with two of the strongest drivers on the grid, Ferrari’s task is not necessarily to choose one over the other, but to manage both as effectively as possible.
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