Maurizio Arrivabene believes Ferrari should have used team orders to let Lewis Hamilton pass Charles Leclerc during the Belgian Grand Prix after the seven-time world champion received a five-second penalty. However, former Ferrari engineer Luigi Mazzola disagreed, arguing that Hamilton did not have enough of a performance advantage to justify compromising Charles Leclerc’s race.
Ferrari left Spa-Francorchamps with only one car on the podium, the number 16 of Charles Leclerc, despite having the potential for a stronger overall result. Lewis Hamilton’s race had been compromised by a five-second penalty following contact with George Russell on the opening lap, an incident both drivers described as a straightforward racing incident but which the FIA judged more critically.
Maurizio Arrivabene backs Ferrari team orders for Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton nevertheless showed competitive pace during the race and found himself alongside Charles Leclerc on several occasions while asking Ferrari to give him a clear run. The situation prompted a debate over whether the pit wall should have ordered a driver swap, allowing Hamilton to pull away and potentially build enough of a gap to minimise the consequences of his penalty.
The Belgian Grand Prix was one of several occasions this season when penalties and incidents have affected Lewis Hamilton’s 2026 championship campaign, adding further significance to Ferrari’s decision-making at Spa.
Speaking on Race Anatomy, former Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene said the team should first have made sure Lewis Hamilton knew about the penalty as quickly as possible.
“He had the pace, so the engineer should have told him about the penalty immediately,” Maurizio Arrivabene said.
He then explained that the five-second sanction was the specific reason why, in this case, he would have supported a position swap between Ferrari’s drivers.
“Because of the five seconds, I would have let him through, but in another situation absolutely not. After all, Enzo Ferrari used to say that your first opponent is your team-mate.”
Luigi Mazzola disagrees over Charles Leclerc sacrifice
Former Ferrari engineer Luigi Mazzola took the opposite view. He questioned the logic of asking Charles Leclerc to give up track position when the Monegasque was performing well and Lewis Hamilton did not appear to possess a sufficiently large pace advantage.
“Why would you demoralise a driver who is going well?” Luigi Mazzola said. “Lewis didn’t have that much superiority.”
Mazzola also highlighted one of the characteristics of racing under the 2026 regulations, pointing to the energy advantage available to a following car through the extra electrical charge.
“When someone arrives from behind, they have the advantage of the extra charge, but then afterwards they can’t pull away, and that seemed to me to be the case with Ferrari.”
Ferrari face a delicate Hamilton-Leclerc team-orders question
The disagreement illustrates the difficulty Ferrari face whenever Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc are running close together. Arrivabene’s argument was not that Hamilton should automatically receive preferential treatment, but that his five-second penalty created an exceptional situation in which maximising the team’s overall result could have justified a temporary driver swap.
Mazzola’s position, by contrast, was that Ferrari had no reason to disrupt Charles Leclerc’s race without clear evidence that Lewis Hamilton could immediately create the required margin once ahead.
The debate is particularly relevant as Ferrari continue to balance the interests of both drivers during the second half of the 2026 championship. With Lewis Hamilton closer to the lead in the Drivers’ standings, questions over whether Ferrari may eventually need to establish a clearer internal hierarchy are likely to remain part of the discussion.
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