Ferrari’s disastrous 2026 Formula 1 Brazilian Grand Prix was not simply the result of the SF-26’s lack of performance. According to former Ferrari engineer Luigi Mazzola, who worked as a race engineer with Alain Prost before becoming head of testing during the Scuderia’s golden era, the difficulties at Interlagos were primarily linked to mistakes in tyre management and a lack of experience in dealing with changing track conditions.
In an exclusive interview with Fanpage.it, Luigi Mazzola strongly criticised Lewis Hamilton for ignoring Ferrari’s instruction to pit before spinning, comparing the seven-time world champion’s actions with those of Michael Schumacher. “I have never seen a situation where a mistake of that kind occurred,” the former Ferrari engineer declared, before adding: “Arrogance never pays.”
However, his criticism extended beyond the British driver. Luigi Mazzola also questioned Fred Vasseur’s management of the relationship between Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, drawing on his own experience of the difficult rivalry between Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell. He also explained why he believes modern Ferrari lacks something that Andrea Stella has brought to McLaren.
Luigi Mazzola explains Ferrari’s tyre pressure problems at the Brazilian GP
Engineer, let’s start with the Brazilian Grand Prix. What went wrong for Ferrari?
“I think what Fred Vasseur said is essentially what happened. With Lewis Hamilton, at least, they set the tyre pressures fairly high to try to have a car that was ready to perform immediately. When it’s wet, there are different approaches to tyre pressures. If they’re too low, the driver can’t find a good feeling with the car because it moves around too much and doesn’t inspire confidence. As a result, he can’t push, he can’t warm up the tyres and, because the tyres don’t warm up, the pressures don’t rise. He ends up in a kind of limbo where he can’t extract the car’s potential.”
And what happens when you start with very high pressures instead?
“You immediately have a car that’s ready to perform. Obviously, though, after two or three laps, the tyres start warming up because the driver can push, the car generates energy and the tyres absorb that energy. At that point, the pressures rise further, the tyres become slightly rounded and the area of tread in contact with the asphalt decreases. That section overheats excessively, leading to both mechanical and thermal degradation.”
Is that what happened to Lewis Hamilton?
“I think that’s exactly the problem he suffered from. A car that was too good at the beginning, but then completely lost rear grip without being able to maintain consistent performance. He even ended up being overtaken by Fernando Alonso. I think this was one of the problems.”
The explanation reflects the importance of Ferrari’s tyre pressure choices at Interlagos, where the SF-26 initially showed promising performance before losing competitiveness as the stint progressed. The technical implications of that approach are also examined in the analysis of Lewis Hamilton’s tyre pressure problems during the Brazilian Grand Prix.
And what about Charles Leclerc?
“He probably suffered from something similar, although in a different way. Perhaps they didn’t use excessively high pressures, but more standard settings. I don’t know exactly what they did with Charles Leclerc’s car, whereas I understood the direction they took with Lewis Hamilton. They might have ended up in a situation where he couldn’t warm up the tyres, couldn’t push and therefore couldn’t achieve the necessary performance in the initial phase.”
Why Ferrari struggled with tyre management in changing conditions
Can these difficulties also occur when switching to slick tyres?
“Certainly. You have cold temperatures, a track that isn’t rubbered in as it would be under normal conditions, and asphalt that has lost grip. You can encounter those situations even with soft tyres. You set the pressures as though it were a dry track, but it takes too long to generate temperature. I think this might also have been a problem for Mercedes, particularly Kimi Antonelli, when he fitted slick tyres and complained about problems with the car. When the tyres and pressures aren’t working, forget about problems with the car: you can’t put the power down, you can’t corner and you have no confidence. It’s a particular situation, but once again Ferrari failed to find the right strategy for using the tyres in the different conditions.”
How much of a role could Ferrari’s car set-up have played?
“I would leave the set-up aside. In my opinion, it only matters up to a point in this case. Qualifying was wet; in fact, it was more than wet, it was a downpour. The race was wet too. So I imagine everyone went in the direction of a set-up suited to those conditions. It would be different if qualifying had been dry and then, suddenly, rain arrived on Sunday. In that case, you could talk about someone taking a gamble with a different choice. But here, I don’t think the set-up was the decisive factor.”
Charles Leclerc has said Ferrari has struggled in these conditions practically since he arrived at Maranello. Is it possible for such different cars to keep suffering from the same problem?
“Rather than the cars, I think it’s a lack of experience among the engineers and perhaps even Charles Leclerc himself, because he hasn’t had the opportunity to develop in that respect. Before he arrived, and even long before that, there was testing. Until 2008, you could test. During testing, engineers and drivers encountered completely different conditions: extremely high temperatures, low temperatures, rain and humidity. They could run in all those situations and gain experience.”
What changed when that testing disappeared?
“That experience was shared. Engineers learned to understand pressures, set-ups and the type of approach to use. The driver also learned to distinguish between conditions in which to run on slicks, intermediates or extreme wet tyres. You built up an enormous amount of experience. Once those testing opportunities disappeared, you essentially gained experience during races. But in a race, you can’t systematically test every condition. One time you encounter one situation, another time something different. You don’t have continuity.”
But today’s simulators are extremely advanced. Can’t they replace that experience?
“You can do a great deal of work in the simulator, but then, when you’re on track and conditions change, you need to know what to do. Take Lewis Hamilton: seven world championships, hundreds of Grands Prix and enormous experience. Yet he makes a huge mistake by deciding not to pit to change tyres. If it happens to him, imagine a driver like Charles Leclerc, who has had even fewer opportunities to learn how to prepare and manage the car in different conditions. In certain situations, you end up feeling your way in the dark.”
Why Luigi Mazzola believes McLaren and Red Bull handle difficult conditions better
But the lack of testing affects everyone. Why do McLaren and Red Bull seem to make far fewer mistakes in wet conditions?
“It affects everyone, but some are smarter than others. At McLaren, for example, there’s Andrea Stella. He experienced those situations; we experienced them together. It was one of my guiding principles for developing engineers: use every possible track condition to build experience. Andrea Stella grew professionally through testing and knows exactly how to deal with certain situations, as well as having a car that’s well managed in terms of set-up and everything else. Red Bull also has a considerable amount of experience.”
So, in your opinion, is Ferrari’s main problem the engineering management of track conditions?
“That’s precisely the aspect I’m questioning. Even during Maurizio Arrivabene’s time, people used to say that Ferrari lacked a real trackside specialist, someone who truly understands what happens at the circuit. That’s the point. There’s a lack of someone with genuine knowledge of every possible situation, or the people who are there cannot cope with such significant changes in track conditions. I would emphasise the lack of experience and ability in trackside engineering management rather than the car itself.”
These observations add another perspective to Ferrari’s tyre pressure strategy and its consequences at Interlagos, where finding the correct operating window proved particularly challenging as the conditions changed.
Luigi Mazzola criticises Lewis Hamilton’s Brazil GP pit-stop decision
Let’s turn to Lewis Hamilton. Towards the end of the race, he ignored the instruction to pit and spun. In situations like that, who should have the final say, the driver or the pit wall?
“The driver. It’s the driver who knows the track conditions, not the people in the pits. Those on the pit wall can see what’s happening on the straight, in the section in front of the pit lane, but the person who knows the conditions around the entire circuit is the driver. And he’s the one driving the car, not the engineer. So the driver has to indicate what should be done.”
So how do you judge Lewis Hamilton’s decision not to pit?
“Lewis Hamilton has found excuses to justify the stupid thing he did. He said he had understood that the rain wasn’t going to get worse, that he had been given certain information. But you can see what’s happening while you’re driving, can’t you? And from the pits, you can see how many other drivers are coming in to change tyres. That’s another reference point. If they tell you to box, box, and you don’t trust them, or your instinct tells you to continue because you think the conditions aren’t changing, then a seven-time world champion has made an enormous mistake.”
The incident occurred as rain intensified towards the end of the Brazilian Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton remained on track despite Ferrari’s instruction to switch tyres, subsequently losing control of his SF-26. The episode also raised questions about the information exchanged between the driver and the pit wall, as examined in the analysis of Ferrari’s late-race radio misunderstanding.
Does your criticism of Lewis Hamilton concern only what happened in Brazil?
“No. I think that in the last few Grands Prix, with this dispute involving Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton has gone a little too far. He arrived at Ferrari last year trying to establish certain guidelines, the kind of contribution that a world champion of his calibre could bring. The problem was that he was slower than Charles Leclerc. There was a difference between what he could say based on his experience and what was actually happening on track, where Charles Leclerc was ahead of him. To the point that halfway through last year, Lewis Hamilton said that he himself was the problem.”
But the comparison between the two drivers is more balanced this year.
“Yes, this year their performances are more or less similar. One does better in one race, the other in another. Lewis Hamilton has started showing what we expected from him again, but Charles Leclerc is still right there. And then Lewis Hamilton makes these statements as though he were the team principal, someone who has arrived to improve the team. But you’re a driver. Stay there and do your job.”
Do you think his attitude is becoming a problem for Ferrari?
“This is already the second time he’s made mistakes of this kind, and that ends up creating doubts about the very experience he wants to bring to the table to set guidelines. If I were him, I would focus on driving and keep quiet instead of trying to do who knows what. Arrogance never pays, even when it comes from a world champion like him. Full credit to him for everything he’s achieved in his career, but right now he’s taking certain positions both on and off the track.”
Why Luigi Mazzola compares Lewis Hamilton with Michael Schumacher
You worked at Ferrari with Alain Prost and later with Michael Schumacher. Did either of them ever ignore a pit-stop instruction in a similar situation?
“No, it never happened to me. I worked as a race engineer until 1994 or 1995. I worked with Alain Prost and then Gerhard Berger before becoming head of testing and stepping away from direct work during Grands Prix. Back then, the team was much smaller, and decisions were made by the race engineers together with the drivers. There wasn’t the entire engineering structure above the race engineer that exists today.”
How did your relationship with Alain Prost work?
“There was a very detailed discussion before the race. We put all the possible solutions on the table based on the situations that might arise. Everything was studied in advance, so things were fairly clear. At that point, even a simple signal from the driver was enough, because he was the one who, based on all that preparation, would say when to come in and change tyres. There was no need for me to keep intervening and telling him what to do. After all, you were dealing with Alain Prost, not a beginner who needed instruction.”
So the difference was in how the decisions were prepared?
“Exactly. It was important to prepare for every possible situation: safety cars, red flags, increasing rain or rain affecting only part of the circuit. That way, you were ready to react. Decisions didn’t emerge suddenly. They came from work done beforehand together with the driver.”
And did anything like what happened with Lewis Hamilton in Brazil ever occur with Michael Schumacher?
“With Michael Schumacher, I was in a different position because I wasn’t his race engineer. I watched him, listened to him and was in communication, but I never saw a situation where there was a mistake of that kind. If a different decision was made, it had been agreed beforehand. It wasn’t a case of the team saying, ‘Box,’ and the driver carrying straight on. Or there would be a discussion beforehand: there’s a chance to try something, so go for it. But it was a shared decision, not something that arose from a lack of trust.”
Is trust between the driver and the pit wall the central issue?
“Absolutely. If there was one thing that existed back then, both in the relationship between Alain Prost and me and between Michael Schumacher and Ross Brawn’s pit wall, it was complete trust. The driver trusted what the team said, and the team trusted the driver. There wasn’t this opposition between them.”
Ferrari’s Hamilton-Leclerc rivalry compared with Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell
Speaking of relationships between team-mates, you also experienced the difficult partnership between Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell at Ferrari. Are there similarities with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc?
“I experienced that situation first-hand. Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell were two dominant personalities competing within the same team. Alain Prost was fighting for the World Championship, and Nigel Mansell probably didn’t like that. As for the way the team was managed at the time, perhaps Cesare Fiorio, as team principal, allowed the situation to get a little out of hand. It led to those events in 1990, culminating in the incident at Estoril that everyone remembers, which in some respects was similar to what happened in Mexico between Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.”
Could that rivalry have been managed differently at the time?
“Yes, particularly because the circumstances were fairly favourable for making a decision. Alain Prost could win the World Championship and was fighting against Ayrton Senna. Nigel Mansell had even announced in July that he was going to retire from Formula 1. So it would have been possible to say that the team needed to try to support Alain Prost in the title fight. That didn’t happen. There was a failure to make a decision about how to manage the situation.”
And what should Ferrari do today with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc?
“To be honest, we’re talking about second place or supposed leadership within the team. Last year, the situation was clearly in Charles Leclerc’s favour, whereas this year the two drivers have fairly similar performances. But they’re not fighting for the World Championship. So, in my opinion, it’s a very easy situation to manage. You just need to talk to the drivers and establish clear boundaries, because ultimately what matters is Ferrari, which provides them with a car to compete.”
The management of the two drivers has already become a prominent issue following their on-track disagreements, with Fred Vasseur’s discussions about Ferrari’s racing rules after the Mexican Grand Prix drawing particular attention.
But when two drivers are genuinely fighting for the title, everything becomes more difficult.
“Certainly. Think about Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, when both could win the World Championship. But even in that case, if you have two drivers capable of winning the championship, ultimately you’ll win the title with one or the other. The problem is establishing the rules before the situation gets out of hand.”
McLaren faced a similar situation with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.
“Yes, last year there wasn’t initially a clear advantage for one over the other there either. Then, at a certain point, a situation developed in which one could win the World Championship while the other had fewer chances because of the mistakes or problems Oscar Piastri had experienced. At that stage, certain rules could have been established. They were a little late in making that decision and risked losing the World Championship to Max Verstappen.”
Luigi Mazzola urges Fred Vasseur to impose clear rules at Ferrari
So, in your opinion, Ferrari’s main problem isn’t the rivalry between Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc?
“You need a competitive car to win. Once you have that, everything else is secondary, situations that can be managed. What you can’t manage is having a car that doesn’t perform, or one that can only fight for third or fourth place. At that point, everything else takes a back seat. If you have a car capable of winning and two dominant personalities competing within the same team, you need to take control of the situation and define the rules very clearly before they start arguing halfway through the season or towards the end.”
How much responsibility do you attribute to Fred Vasseur for the situation between Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc?
“Who else are you going to hold responsible? You can’t blame the drivers. They’re there to try to win, and they don’t care about their team-mate. They want to win, and that’s part of their nature. If they didn’t have that attitude, they should change professions. You just need to tell them to keep pushing as hard as possible to get the car as far up the order as they can.”
So Fred Vasseur needs to intervene?
“It’s clear that in a situation like this, the person in charge has to intervene. Fred Vasseur must eventually establish the rules because he’s the one who has to determine what matters for Ferrari. Ferrari is more important than either driver. He must ensure that certain rules are respected, and if someone doesn’t respect them, there must be consequences.”
His assessment places responsibility for managing Ferrari’s internal competition firmly with the team principal, rather than with the drivers themselves. The issue has remained under scrutiny despite Fred Vasseur’s explanation of how Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc addressed their differences following the tensions surrounding the Mexican Grand Prix.
Why Luigi Mazzola is not worried about Ferrari at the Las Vegas GP
My final question concerns Las Vegas. After the difficulties in Brazil, should Ferrari be worried about the very low temperatures expected at the next Grand Prix?
“No, I don’t see any particular problems. It’s not the first time they’ve been to Las Vegas, and they already know they’ll encounter low temperatures. So they need to work in a certain way with the set-up, aerodynamic downforce, pressures and everything else that’s necessary. If you know the temperatures are low, you also know the tyres will need more laps to reach the correct operating window. But once they start working, you can push.”
So the cold conditions in Las Vegas are different from the variable wet conditions at Interlagos?
“Exactly. Think about all the testing we used to do in winter at Barcelona, Mugello, Imola, Fiorano or Paul Ricard. You would get up in the morning and find frost on the ground. What did you do, refuse to run? No, you went out, knowing that in those conditions you needed a particular set-up and a specific approach. Then, if the temperature rose and the asphalt warmed up, you moved back towards more normal conditions. That’s why I don’t see any particular problem at a circuit where you already know the temperatures will be low.”
Although Ferrari’s Brazilian Grand Prix exposed difficulties in adapting to rapidly changing conditions, Luigi Mazzola believes the more predictable cold weather in Las Vegas presents a different challenge. His assessment contrasts with concerns about how the SF-26 could perform in the low temperatures expected at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, where tyre preparation and management will once again be important.
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