Ferrari is still chasing the level of competitiveness required to fight consistently at the front, but one question risks being overlooked amid the debate surrounding its season: what happens when the Scuderia finally has a car capable of challenging for the Formula 1 World Championship? Today, the comparison between Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton is driven mainly by individual results and performances. If Ferrari becomes a genuine title contender, however, managing two drivers with championship ambitions could become a far more difficult problem.
Recent discussions, including those that followed the Singapore Grand Prix, have once again focused attention on the behaviour of the two Ferrari drivers, their aggression on track and their respective ambitions. The issue is not about deciding whether supporters of Charles Leclerc or Lewis Hamilton are right. The real question is how Ferrari intends to build its future and manage two champions if both are eventually given a realistic opportunity to win.
Charles Leclerc and the question of aggression against Max Verstappen
Let us start with Singapore. Without having followed the entire race but having watched the highlights, one thought comes naturally: more aggression might have been expected from Charles Leclerc during the opening stages, when he found himself fighting Max Verstappen in Singapore.
Of course, attacking does not mean risking a collision at any cost. A driver has to judge the space available, the realistic possibility of completing an overtake and the potential consequences of making a move. Nobody can reasonably expect a race to be sacrificed for a desperate attempt.
However, once the chances of winning the World Championship have effectively disappeared, victory in an individual Grand Prix becomes even more valuable. For Ferrari and its supporters, returning to the top step of the podium would represent an important source of satisfaction as well as a sign that the team is becoming competitive again.
That makes the question legitimate: if Charles Leclerc has shown on other occasions that he can be particularly aggressive when fighting Lewis Hamilton, why not apply the same pressure to Max Verstappen when an opportunity presents itself?
This is not about criticising Charles Leclerc as a matter of principle. In a season in which Ferrari were fully involved in the championship fight, risk management could demand a different approach. But when the title is already out of reach, the dividing line between sensible caution and a missed opportunity deserves closer examination.
The same reasoning applies to Lewis Hamilton. Both Ferrari drivers need to be placed in a position where they can express their competitiveness against their rivals, rather than only against each other. Ferrari’s difficulties in converting its potential at Marina Bay were also evident in the team’s Singapore Grand Prix technical and strategy analysis.
Lewis Hamilton is not destroying Charles Leclerc
There is another recurring tendency in the debate around Ferrari: either Lewis Hamilton is portrayed as a driver in irreversible decline or, at the opposite extreme, he is presented as someone who is destroying Charles Leclerc.
Both interpretations are too absolute for a situation that is considerably more complex.
Lewis Hamilton arrived at Maranello after an extraordinary career, with seven World Championships and a level of experience that is difficult to compare with that of most drivers on the Formula 1 grid. Some initial expectations portrayed the British driver as a champion approaching the end of his career, whose main role would eventually be to place his experience at the service of Charles Leclerc.
Reality, however, cannot be reduced to that narrative.
Lewis Hamilton has shown that he can still be extremely competitive, while Charles Leclerc has continued to demonstrate his considerable talent without being immune to mistakes or difficult periods. Lewis Hamilton has naturally made mistakes of his own and has not always maximised every opportunity, including in qualifying.
For that reason, describing the situation as Lewis Hamilton demolishing Charles Leclerc is excessive. But it would be equally mistaken to regard the seven-time World Champion as merely a supporting figure inside Ferrari.
The important point is to recognise that Lewis Hamilton can still be an extremely difficult opponent to beat, even for a driver with the talent of Charles Leclerc. The season-long balance between the two Ferrari drivers can also be followed through the Charles Leclerc vs Lewis Hamilton F1 head-to-head statistics.
When Lewis Hamilton is able to perform at his best, his speed and his ability to manage a race can allow him to compete with the strongest drivers. The question concerns consistency, which inevitably becomes an important factor when evaluating a long-term project.
Charles Leclerc, for his part, has a longer career horizon ahead of him, but he must turn his potential into greater consistency of results while reducing the mistakes that can cost valuable championship points.
Neither driver, therefore, can reasonably be reduced to a simplistic slogan.
Ferrari’s real problem is how to manage Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton
Imagine for a moment that Ferrari succeeds in solving its technical problems and consistently reaches the performance level of Formula 1’s best cars.
In that scenario, the battle between Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton would immediately take on a completely different meaning.
As long as the car does not allow Ferrari to fight regularly for victories, the internal rivalry remains relatively contained. But when both drivers have a genuine opportunity to win races, take pole positions and fight for championship-defining points, their individual ambitions inevitably become far more important.
That dynamic is already attracting attention after Singapore. Recent discussion over whether the Ferrari pairing can become too focused on beating one another has raised the question of whether the Lewis Hamilton-Charles Leclerc rivalry can work against Ferrari’s wider interests.
Charles Leclerc cannot automatically be considered the team leader simply because he represents Ferrari’s longer-term future. Lewis Hamilton, by the same logic, is unlikely to accept being relegated to the role of number two merely because of his age or because he has fewer seasons remaining in his career.
Both want to win. Both have reasons to consider themselves competitive. Neither can simply be transformed into a supporting driver without sporting and human consequences.
That is precisely the problem Maranello should be preparing to manage.
The risk is not limited to a few heated battles on track. An internal rivalry can influence strategy, the allocation of upgrades, tyre management and decisions made during a Grand Prix. At decisive moments in a championship, even a handful of lost points can make the difference between winning the title and watching it disappear.
Ferrari therefore should not restrict the discussion to deciding which driver is faster. It also needs to establish what sporting structure it intends to adopt once its car becomes a genuine World Championship contender. The debate has already surfaced through questions over Ferrari’s team orders between Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc during the Singapore weekend.
Two champions can win together, but they need a superior car
Formula 1 history has demonstrated that a team can succeed with two exceptional drivers. It has also shown just how complicated that coexistence can become when both have a realistic opportunity to win the World Championship.
McLaren won 15 of the 16 races in 1988 with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. It was an extraordinary level of technical domination that allowed the team to manage a remarkable season without eliminating the tensions between its two champions.
Mercedes also dominated during the hybrid era with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, but the rivalry between the two drivers became exceptionally intense and ultimately culminated in Nico Rosberg winning the World Championship in 2016.
These examples demonstrate that fielding two strong drivers is not necessarily the wrong choice. It can provide enormous potential, increase the pressure each driver places on the other and give a team two opportunities to achieve major results.
The problem is that such a strategy requires impeccable management and, above all, a sufficiently competitive car.
When a team has an enormous technical advantage, it can absorb the inevitable consequences of an internal battle more easily. When the performance margin over rivals is small, however, every point taken away from a teammate can instead become an advantage for the opposition.
That is why the model of allowing two drivers to compete entirely freely, while attractive from a sporting perspective, is not always the most effective way to win a World Championship.
Managing a Formula 1 team cannot rely solely on the romantic idea that both drivers must receive exactly the same opportunities in every possible situation. Clear rules, shared objectives and the ability to make difficult decisions when the championship requires them are essential. Ferrari’s policy of giving its drivers freedom to race has already been tested this season, with the broader Leclerc-Hamilton management question emerging well before a title fight.
Charles Leclerc or Lewis Hamilton? The choice Ferrari cannot avoid forever
If I were imagining a Ferrari project designed around several seasons, Charles Leclerc would be an understandable choice because of his age, longer-term prospects and knowledge of the team environment.
But if the objective were to win immediately with a car that had finally become truly competitive, Lewis Hamilton could not simply be excluded because he is in the later phase of his career.
The British driver has already demonstrated his ability to turn talent into extraordinary results. The real question is how consistently he can still perform at that level and for how long that standard of performance can be sustained.
Charles Leclerc offers a longer-term perspective, but he must demonstrate that he can reduce his mistakes and maintain a sufficiently consistent level of performance across an entire championship campaign.
There is no simple answer. More importantly, the best solution does not necessarily have to be decided exclusively through the direct comparison between the two Ferrari drivers.
Ferrari could establish clear sporting criteria based on performance, results and each driver’s genuine chances of winning the World Championship. But those criteria would need to be established before a potential internal rivalry begins damaging the team’s championship ambitions.
Alternatively, Ferrari could choose to commit decisively to one leader and build a structure around that driver designed to maximise the chances of success. It would perhaps be a less romantic approach, but Formula 1 history has shown that it can be effective in certain circumstances.
The question is especially important because Ferrari has previously chosen to let the two drivers race while postponing a permanent hierarchy. That approach, and the risks attached to it, became clear when Ferrari’s handling of team orders came under scrutiny as the competition between the two intensified.
Ferrari will eventually have to confront the Leclerc-Hamilton problem
The debate surrounding the Ferrari drivers can easily descend into a battle between fanbases. Some defend Charles Leclerc regardless of the circumstances, others regard Lewis Hamilton as a driver already approaching the end of his competitive relevance, while others interpret every individual result as definitive proof that one is superior to the other.
Ferrari’s problem is deeper than that.
First and foremost, the team needs a car capable of fighting consistently for victories. Without that essential condition, any discussion about how Ferrari should manage its drivers risks remaining theoretical.
Once that car arrives, however, Maranello will have to confront a choice that can still be postponed today: allow Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton to compete freely or establish a clear hierarchy.
The issue is not entirely new. Earlier in the season, Fred Vasseur welcomed the pressure created by the internal battle, with Lewis Hamilton’s growing challenge to Charles Leclerc viewed as part of a competitive dynamic within Ferrari. A genuine title fight would make the consequences of that philosophy considerably more significant.
If Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton eventually find themselves genuinely fighting for the Formula 1 World Championship, neither will automatically accept sacrificing personal ambitions for the benefit of the other.
Ferrari would then have to demonstrate that it is capable not only of building a championship-winning car, but also of managing two champions.
The real risk for the Scuderia is not having two drivers who are too strong. It is failing to know how to manage them when both finally have the opportunity to win.
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