Two Ferraris, one corner, no win
Ferrari started the Mexico City Grand Prix with Lewis Hamilton on pole and Charles Leclerc third. It finished with a two-four result and a very public disagreement. The trouble came in the first four corners, where the team-mates went wheel to wheel for the lead. Leclerc got ahead, Hamilton ran wide defending, and Max Verstappen took advantage on the exit of Turn Five.
The stewards handed Leclerc a five-second penalty for leaving the track at Turn Four and gaining an advantage. The baseline would have been ten seconds, but they cut it because Hamilton had also gone off early on that lap. Leclerc served it at his pit stop, and that put Verstappen in front for good.
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“A mentality thing”
Hamilton, 41 and in his second season at Ferrari, did not hold back afterwards. Asked whether age explained Leclerc’s approach, he said: “I don’t think it’s an age thing. I think it’s a mentality thing.” He argued that fighting for a win so hard that you lose it makes no sense, said the team had “lost the win” and called for serious talks behind the scenes. A fight for fourth and fifth, he added, is a different matter from a fight for victory.
Leclerc, 28, saw it another way. He said he will always go for the win when a gap opens, that both drivers braked as late as they could at Turns Four and Five, and that neither made the corner. His first thought after running wide was to give the place back, but things got confusing once Verstappen was through. He asked on the radio and kept the position. He expects the pair to talk it through.
How the race ended
Hamilton recovered to finish second, within a second of the winner, after passing Leclerc at the restart that followed a red flag for Valtteri Bottas’s heavy crash. Leclerc took fourth. For Verstappen it was a third win in four races. He backed up Hamilton’s view in his own way, saying Ferrari’s two lead drivers always push and that the clash cost them the win.
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