Ferrari should put its weight behind Lewis Hamilton for the remainder of the 2026 Formula 1 title fight and ask Charles Leclerc to play a supporting role when required, according to former Scuderia engineer Rob Smedley. With Hamilton significantly closer to championship leader Kimi Antonelli, Smedley believes continued hesitation over the team’s driver hierarchy risks costing Ferrari valuable points.
The Maranello team has so far avoided formally favouring either driver, even as the championship picture has increasingly separated Hamilton and Leclerc. That approach was again under scrutiny at the Dutch Grand Prix, where Ferrari chose not to immediately move Leclerc aside when his team-mate caught him on fresher tyres, contributing to another debate over how Ferrari managed its two drivers at Zandvoort.
Rob Smedley wants Ferrari to make Lewis Hamilton its priority
Rob Smedley, who worked at Ferrari from 2004 until 2014, believes the championship situation now requires a much clearer approach. Lewis Hamilton is joint-second in the standings and 59 points behind Kimi Antonelli, while Charles Leclerc is fifth and 87 points away from the championship lead.
In Smedley’s view, those gaps mean Leclerc is no longer a realistic title contender at this stage, whereas Hamilton retains a stronger opportunity to influence the outcome of the championship. The former Ferrari engineer therefore believes the team should focus its efforts on maximising the seven-time world champion’s points whenever circumstances allow.
Speaking to High Performance Racing, Smedley explained that his view had remained consistent from the beginning: if Ferrari wanted to have a meaningful impact on the championship, the team would eventually have to rally behind Hamilton. He acknowledged that accepting such an arrangement would be difficult for Leclerc and the personnel working on his side of the garage, but emphasised that everyone ultimately works for Ferrari.
According to Smedley, Hamilton has simply produced the stronger championship run this season. He stressed that such a decision would not amount to giving the British driver permanent number-one status. Instead, it would be a temporary response to the competitive situation in 2026, with the points reset at the beginning of the following season and both drivers then free to fight on equal terms again.
Ferrari’s Dutch GP decision puts team orders back in focus
The debate intensified after the recent Dutch Grand Prix. Hamilton closed on Leclerc while running on fresher tyres, but Ferrari did not immediately order a position swap. The situation generated radio tension during a race in which the Scuderia ultimately brought Hamilton home fourth and Leclerc fifth.
Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur later explained that the team had expected Leclerc to make another pit stop, which was why an immediate swap was not considered necessary. The pit wall was also reluctant to reveal its strategy too clearly over the radio with rivals listening. The sequence nevertheless became another example of the increasingly difficult decisions Ferrari faces while managing team orders in the championship fight.
A similar discussion emerged at the Hungarian Grand Prix before the summer break. Leclerc inherited fourth place from Hamilton after the Briton received a five-second penalty, prompting some to argue that Ferrari could have instructed the Monegasque driver to slow sufficiently for his team-mate to retain the position after the penalty was applied.
Those episodes matter because every point has growing importance for Hamilton’s title campaign. The latest developments involving the British driver can also be followed through the Lewis Hamilton Ferrari news archive, while Leclerc’s season and results are covered in the Charles Leclerc section.
Smedley says Ferrari cannot wait for the situation to resolve itself
Smedley’s criticism is aimed primarily at Ferrari’s management rather than at either driver. He believes the team is avoiding responsibility by waiting for the championship situation to settle naturally instead of making a firm strategic decision.
The former Ferrari engineer argued that Hamilton has delivered the better run of results and that the team must use that position collectively if it wants to take points away from Mercedes. In his assessment, Ferrari does not possess the best car consistently, but there have been weekends when it has had the machinery to compete at the front.
When those opportunities arise, Smedley believes the priority should be ensuring Hamilton can convert them into victories and then maximising his points on weekends when Ferrari does not have the strongest package. From his perspective, this is not fundamentally about favouring one driver personally, but about choosing the approach most likely to improve Ferrari’s position in the world championship.
That argument places greater pressure on the Scuderia to define how it will handle future situations involving its two drivers. Ferrari had already entered the Dutch Grand Prix facing questions over potential team orders between Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, and their differing championship positions make those calls increasingly consequential as the season progresses.
Why Smedley believes strong management is now essential
Smedley does not expect an unmanaged situation to resolve itself in Ferrari’s favour. He argued that indecision and waiting in the hope that circumstances remove the need for a difficult call is unlikely to work. Instead, he believes Ferrari needs strong management and a clear direction for the remainder of the title campaign.
The proposed hierarchy would also remain strictly tied to the current championship situation. Smedley’s position is that Hamilton has earned priority because of his stronger 2026 campaign rather than because he should automatically receive preferential treatment as a matter of status.
For Leclerc, that could mean accepting a supporting role in specific circumstances despite the inevitable difficulty of sacrificing his own result. For Ferrari, however, Smedley believes the wider objective has to take precedence: maximise Hamilton’s championship score whenever possible and ensure that occasions when the car is capable of fighting at the front are converted into the strongest possible outcome.
With Hamilton still much closer to Kimi Antonelli than Leclerc, the question is becoming harder for Ferrari to postpone. The Scuderia can continue allowing both drivers to pursue their own results, or it can adopt the clearer hierarchy Smedley believes is necessary to give Hamilton the strongest possible chance of influencing the 2026 drivers’ championship.
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