In March, allowing Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc to race freely made perfect sense. Both were starting a new Formula 1 season, both believed they could fight for the World Championship and both were quick enough to consider themselves Ferrari’s natural reference point. By September, however, continuing to behave as though nothing has changed is no longer simply caution. It is a choice.
That is increasingly the heart of Ferrari’s team orders problem: Fred Vasseur has effectively decided not to decide. And the Italian Grand Prix at Monza simply removed the lid from an issue that had been building for months.
Lewis Hamilton tried to attack Charles Leclerc down the inside at the first chicane, Charles Leclerc defended and the two Ferrari drivers compromised one another, with Lewis Hamilton losing positions. Shortly afterwards, Charles Leclerc crashed out. Meanwhile, Andrea Kimi Antonelli had started 19th, charged through the field, won the race and extended his championship advantage over Lewis Hamilton to 76 points. The contrast could hardly have been more painful for Ferrari.
Hamilton and Leclerc are not Ferrari’s real problem
Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc are not the fundamental problem. They are two drivers behaving exactly as two competitors who believe they should be number one normally behave: they protect their territory.
Lewis Hamilton is a seven-time World Champion and did not move to Maranello to become somebody else’s supporting act. Charles Leclerc is the driver around whom Ferrari has built years of its project, and he has no intention of simply handing that status to the new arrival. Why should anybody be surprised?
What is surprising is expecting the drivers themselves to spontaneously resolve a question that should ultimately be settled by those above them.
The job of a team principal is not to stop two champions from wanting to be number one. It is to decide what happens when both want to be number one at exactly the same moment.
Ferrari team orders have been an issue long before Monza
Ferrari had already started losing ground through its driver management before Monza. In China, allowing Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc to race made sense. By Canada, the internal contest had already become more sensitive.
In Barcelona, when Ferrari made a clear decision, the result followed. In Hungary, the team did not choose which driver to support in the World Championship, yet it did choose to help Charles Leclerc take two points away from the team-mate who was better placed in the standings at that stage.
At Zandvoort, meanwhile, hesitation over how to manage Lewis Hamilton while he was running behind Charles Leclerc cost Ferrari time and probably a podium as well.
Then came Monza, where everything finally exploded into the open. Lewis Hamilton revealed that Mercedes had operated with written rules of engagement between its drivers. At Ferrari, there are no equivalent rules.
Fred Vasseur has continued to argue that it was “too early” to choose between his drivers. At that point, however, the inevitable question becomes: too early compared with what?
After Monza, the championship has effectively made Ferrari’s decision
In March, it genuinely was too early. By June, that position was already becoming debatable. At Zandvoort, Ferrari was beginning to run late. After Monza, it cannot reasonably be described as early at all. The championship has effectively made the decision for Fred Vasseur.
Lewis Hamilton is now 76 points behind Andrea Kimi Antonelli, while Charles Leclerc is 112 points adrift. Ferrari also trails Mercedes by 122 points in the Constructors’ Championship as the 2026 Formula 1 season moves into its next phase.
Nor is the other familiar justification entirely convincing: “the team has to think about what is best for the team.” Of course it does. But if that is the principle guiding Ferrari, it also has to explain why refusing to choose has ended up costing the team points.
In China, the battle between the Ferrari drivers opened the door for George Russell. At Zandvoort, Ferrari lost valuable time while Lewis Hamilton waited behind Charles Leclerc. At Monza, the two compromised each other at the first corner, and Ferrari ended its home weekend with only eight points compared with Mercedes’ 43.
Mercedes showed Ferrari that a permanent number one was not necessary
There is another detail that makes the comparison even less comfortable for Ferrari. At Zandvoort, Mercedes did exactly the opposite.
Mercedes swapped Andrea Kimi Antonelli and George Russell to prevent its two drivers from wasting time fighting each other and to maximise the team’s Constructors’ Championship points. Mercedes did not necessarily decide which driver was more important. It simply decided what was most useful for the team at that particular moment.
That is the distinction Ferrari continues to blur.
The Scuderia did not necessarily need to formally declare one driver number one and the other number two. It needed clear rules, priorities and limits. There is a significant difference between establishing a permanent hierarchy and giving two drivers precise instructions about how they are expected to behave when their individual battle threatens the team’s overall result.
Fred Vasseur’s refusal to choose has itself become a choice
Not choosing is still a choice. And sometimes it is the most expensive one available.
Fred Vasseur feared that imposing an early hierarchy between Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc could damage Ferrari. That concern was understandable at the start of the season, when both drivers still had realistic ambitions of becoming the team’s championship reference.
But circumstances change during a Formula 1 season. Championship gaps grow, opportunities disappear and the value of every lost point increases. A management strategy that made sense in March does not automatically remain the right one in September.
Ferrari has now waited so long that the absence of any defined hierarchy or clear rules of engagement has itself become damaging. The problem is no longer simply whether Lewis Hamilton or Charles Leclerc should receive priority. It is that both drivers have repeatedly been left to determine that question on the track.
And Monza demonstrated precisely what can happen when that responsibility is left entirely in their hands.
Fred Vasseur wanted to avoid damaging Ferrari by deciding too early. He waited so long that, in the end, the most damaging decision may have been not making one at all. Chapeau!
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