In chess, they’re even: four wins each. Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton (notice how easily that order flips – two months ago we were writing Hamilton and Leclerc) play whenever they can, meaning whenever they’re not together, since their schedules at the circuits are timed to the second. They study each other, compete fiercely, and each suspects the other of calling in help from some form of artificial intelligence – but fundamentally, they’re having fun. It’s a different story on track, where Charles has a clear edge over the seven-time champion. The numbers say it all: 3–1 in qualifying (they were even until China, but in the last two GPs Lewis fell behind by 0.3 and 0.6 seconds), and 4–0 in races (in the three GPs finished without disqualification, the total gap was 25 seconds). All consistently in Charles’ favor.
Lewis Hamilton is slower than Charles Leclerc at this moment: the data
You can see it in their faces: Lewis Hamilton looks lost, Charles Leclerc looks tense but focused. You can see it in the lap times. On Sunday in Bahrain, before finishing just outside the podium, they were on equal footing for only two laps (15 and 16), but those laps gave a clear verdict. It happened right after all the drivers ahead of them had pitted for soft Pirelli tires. The Monegasque and the Briton, in that order and still on their first set of medium tires, found themselves in front: Charles with no backmarkers ahead, Lewis 9 seconds behind, so also in clean air. On lap 15: Hamilton was 0.420 seconds slower. On lap 16: Hamilton was 0.425 seconds slower. Clear, consistent signs.
Lewis Hamilton’s radio issues with Riccardo Adami
You can hear it in the radio communications between Lewis and his race engineer, Riccardo Adami, a delightful person and refined engineer. And yet, a harmful “lost in translation” remains. In Japan, the driver had addressed the engineer rudely; in Bahrain, a sense of confusion emerged in several messages.
Adami to Hamilton: “FW mode, please.”
Hamilton to Adami: “What’s FW mode? Hahaha.”
Adami to Hamilton: “To help us under the safety car…”
And already on Saturday, to optimize the qualifying lap:
Driver to pit wall: “Where am I losing that time?”
Pit wall to driver: “Mainly at the peak of braking everywhere, more in turns 4, 11, 14. Two tenths per corner. Don’t force the entries. Charles is braking ten meters earlier.”
Driver to pit wall: “You mean ten meters everywhere?”
Pit wall to driver: “Yes, 4 and 11 specifically, where you need to focus more.”
Too many words to say they’ve found common ground. And the phrase “you need to focus more” is something you might expect Bono Bonnington (who used to communicate with Lewis in monosyllables at Mercedes) to say to Kimi Antonelli; to say it to a multi-time world champion is quite something. Add to this: Lewis Hamilton still knows little to nothing about Maranello, while Charles Leclerc knows where everything is—even in the drawers.
Lewis Hamilton and culture
It’s not a matter of being washed up or unmotivated. That would be too simple. You need to scratch beneath the surface to understand that joining a Latin team isn’t an automatic transition if you’ve spent your whole career in Anglo-Saxon environments (Mercedes and, before that, McLaren). The work systems are vastly different. The absence of a stable, competitive car doesn’t help. And we’re told that the switch from the Brackley simulator to the one in Maranello has been a shock for Hamilton, who is still trying to find his footing. Could it be that Lewis isn’t comfortable with this valuable system, which has only recently become fully operational?
Lewis Hamilton apologizes: “I’m too slow”
He’s waiting for Ferrari to provide a winning car, and Ferrari is waiting for him—after all, Fred Vasseur spent a year praising the prospect of a new source of inspiration, a new vision that would enrich the team. None of that has happened yet, and now it’s time for apologies. On Saturday, after qualifying ninth, Lewis said: “I was just too slow, I’m not getting the job done. I feel sorry for everyone at the factory and for the fans. I apologize.” On Sunday, the justifications: “I didn’t expect the adaptation to be this complicated, but at least I’ve shown that I want to fight back.”
Fred Vasseur is defending him tooth and nail—of course, he’s the one who brought him in. But it’s bitterly clear that Hamilton didn’t expect this Ferrari, and Ferrari didn’t expect this Lewis Hamilton.
Forgive the repetition of the verb “to wait” – it’s a muscle long trained in the fans of the Scuderia.
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