Fred Vasseur has told Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc that protecting Ferrari must be a shared responsibility after the Italian Grand Prix brought the team’s driver management under intense scrutiny. The Ferrari team principal confirmed that there were matters to clarify following Monza, but rejected suggestions that the incidents involving his drivers represented evidence of an internal crisis.
Speaking exclusively to Motorsport.com, Fred Vasseur revealed that he held discussions with both drivers after the Grand Prix, covering what happened on track as well as some of the comments made during the weekend. What he disputes is the scale of the narrative that followed, with the situation rapidly becoming portrayed as a sign of deeper tension within the Maranello team.
Fred Vasseur spoke to Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc after Monza
“We had good meetings with Lewis and Charles,” Fred Vasseur explained. “They cleared things up together and I reminded them of some fundamental principles of the way I manage the team. And I will continue to follow them.”
The Ferrari team principal’s message goes beyond the specific events at Monza. Fred Vasseur wants Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc to accept part of the responsibility for protecting the work of the team, just as he believes he must do whenever something goes wrong. It comes as Ferrari’s management of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc has become one of the major talking points following the Italian Grand Prix.
Fred Vasseur used a previous Ferrari victory to illustrate the principle he expects everyone within the organisation to follow.
“I reminded Lewis that when we won the race in Melbourne two years ago thanks to strategy, I sent Ravin Jain onto the podium because it was right to reward him. When we lost a race because of strategy, however, I went in front of the television cameras and put myself on the line. My job is to protect the hundreds of people in the team and take responsibility. That is what I asked of the drivers as well: if we want to achieve results, we have to protect the team and each take responsibility for our own part.”
Ferrari is not asking its drivers to stop being critical
Fred Vasseur stressed that his request should not be interpreted as an attempt to silence either driver. He does not expect Lewis Hamilton or Charles Leclerc to stop being open or critical, but he is conscious that comments made in front of the media can acquire far greater significance than the driver originally intended.
“I’m not asking them not to be open or not to be tough. But very often they are much calmer with us than they are when they then go to speak to the press. Lewis told me: ‘Fred, 80% of my message was positive and they took the 20% that was negative.’ But we all know how it works. If you say the team is doing a good job and then add a ‘but’, that will be the part that becomes the headline. It is part of the game.”
That point is central to Fred Vasseur’s interpretation of the discussion that developed after Monza. The near-contact between the Ferrari drivers happened, Lewis Hamilton was aggressive and Charles Leclerc later acknowledged his own mistake. However, the conversation quickly moved beyond the racing incident itself and towards wider questions over Ferrari’s driver management and even the stability of the team’s leadership.
The broader debate has also intensified discussion over why Fred Vasseur remains reluctant to choose permanently between Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.
Fred Vasseur rejects Ferrari driver-management crisis claims
“Charles, after the discussion, said: ‘I was too aggressive.’ And for me that is fine. When Kimi was fighting with Russell, he ended up in the gravel, just as Lewis did at the start. In our case, though, we moved very quickly from an on-track incident to talking about a crisis in driver management. I think the two things have to be kept in the right proportion.”
Fred Vasseur was referring to Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s battle with George Russell as another example of an incident that can occur during a race without necessarily pointing to a deeper structural problem. His position is that what happened between the Ferrari drivers should be assessed in the same context rather than automatically treated as evidence of a breakdown within the team.
The Ferrari team principal also rejected the suggestion that the Scuderia operates without clear “rules of engagement”. According to Fred Vasseur, no set of regulations can account for every centimetre of every possible on-track battle. What Ferrari does have, he insisted, are established principles and defined responsibilities.
“To say there are no ‘rules of engagement’ does not reflect reality. You cannot expect every possible scenario you might encounter on track to be written into the contracts, because inevitably everything would become a matter of interpretation. ‘I was there’, ‘no, you were five centimetres further back’: you solve nothing. The principles are clear and the drivers know them.”
Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc will continue to receive equal treatment
Ferrari’s philosophy therefore remains unchanged: two number-one drivers receiving equal treatment. A hierarchy could eventually be introduced if the championship standings make it clear that one driver no longer has a realistic opportunity, but Fred Vasseur has no intention of making that decision prematurely.
“Ferrari’s drivers can count on equal treatment, then there could come a moment when we have to decide, if one of the two is out of the fight. In that case it will be my decision. But until that moment, the treatment will be equal.”
The position directly contrasts with arguments that Ferrari should already establish a clear hierarchy. Juan Pablo Montoya, for example, has urged Ferrari to make Lewis Hamilton its number-one driver, but Fred Vasseur believes making such a call too early can create its own risks.
To illustrate his reasoning, the French manager pointed to the previous season. Oscar Piastri arrived at Monza with a lead of more than 30 points over Lando Norris, yet McLaren asked Oscar Piastri during the race to hand second place back to Lando Norris. Fred Vasseur suggested that committing everything to one driver too early could have changed the eventual outcome of the championship.
“Imagine if McLaren had decided to put everything behind Piastri: perhaps Verstappen, who finished three points behind Norris, could have become champion. That is what I told our drivers. We will make a decision when we are closer to the end, why not? But today there isn’t even anything to discuss.”
Fred Vasseur defends Ferrari’s ADUO 2 power unit upgrade
Driver management was not the only issue Fred Vasseur wanted to address after Monza. The Ferrari team principal also challenged criticism of the technical work carried out at Maranello, particularly suggestions that the ADUO 2 development introduced for the Italian Grand Prix had failed to produce the expected result.
Fred Vasseur believes that conclusion overlooks the dramatically different effect power can have depending on the characteristics of a circuit. The fact that Ferrari’s relative lap-time deficit was greater at Monza than at Zandvoort does not, in his view, mean the power-unit development failed. The technical context behind Ferrari’s ADUO 2 performance and energy deployment at Monza is therefore essential when assessing the update.
“I know it is difficult to understand at first glance, but anyone with some technical knowledge knows exactly what I’m talking about. I’ll give you an example: on a track like Zandvoort, a horsepower gap of X can mean losing three tenths. If we improve that engine’s performance to the point where we reduce the power gap by a third, then we go to a circuit like Monza and we will see that the lap time relative to our rivals, instead of improving… gets worse.”
“That does not mean the ADUO isn’t working. Even if you make a step forward of several horsepower, at Monza you can still be further from the benchmark than you were at Zandvoort.”
The reasoning is that power has a greater influence on lap time at a circuit such as Monza. As a result, an improvement in Ferrari’s power unit can be genuine while the absolute deficit to a stronger reference remains more damaging on a circuit where horsepower and deployment carry greater weight.
For Fred Vasseur, however, there is another issue behind the criticism: respect for the engineers and staff working at Maranello.
“When I read that ‘the ADUO doesn’t work’, I find it disrespectful towards the guys working on the engine because it does not reflect reality.”
Fred Vasseur responds to renewed speculation over his Ferrari future
The scrutiny surrounding Ferrari has also returned to Fred Vasseur himself. Leading the Scuderia means operating under constant examination, and speculation over the French manager’s future has resurfaced periodically. A similar situation developed last year, when rumours of a possible departure were circulating even though his contract renewal had already been agreed.
Monza has once again placed Fred Vasseur’s Ferrari future under scrutiny, but the team principal insists that the speculation will not distract him from his work.
“There is someone saying I will be fired this weekend or that I was fired last night. We have won two races and we can win others, and we have clear ideas about how to make further steps forward. I focus my energy on that. Being under pressure is part of my job. It is not something on which I want to waste energy.”
Asked whether he sometimes feels “alone” in his position, Fred Vasseur firmly rejected the suggestion.
“First of all, it is not for me to underline whether or not I have the support of the Presidency, but the communication channel is constantly open in a constructive way. In addition, at almost every race weekend we have had representatives from the senior management in Maranello with us, from John Elkann to Benedetto Vigna, as well as Piero Ferrari. I think it is a really good sign for the people working in the team, both at the track and in Maranello.”
Fred Vasseur wants Ferrari criticism kept in proportion
The pressure nevertheless remains, and Fred Vasseur appears to have no intention of attempting to escape it. In his view, pressure is simply part of the responsibility that comes with leading Ferrari. What he wants instead is a distinction between legitimate criticism and narratives that turn every difficult moment into evidence of a much larger crisis.
That distinction has become increasingly relevant after Monza, where technical concerns surrounding the SF-26, the battle between Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc and speculation about the team principal all converged within the same weekend. The wider discussion over whether Ferrari’s 2026 problems extend beyond Fred Vasseur reflects how many different areas of the team are now being examined at once.
Fred Vasseur’s message remains consistent across all of them. Criticism can remain criticism, and a racing incident can remain a racing incident, without either automatically becoming evidence of a deeper crisis. At the same time, he expects Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc to recognise the impact their words and actions can have and to share his responsibility for protecting the hundreds of people working for Ferrari.
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