It will be on August 1 when I return to my duties as a full-time Formula 1 journalist. This means that I currently have plenty of time to listen to podcasts while hiking in the Austrian mountains. For example, the official preview from F1 Nation before the Belgian Grand Prix, with experts I consider among the best in the business: James Hinchcliffe and Jolyon Palmer.
Palmer will likely continue to be known to many fans. He competed for Renault in F1 in 2016 and 2017, before being replaced by Carlos Sainz towards the end of his second season. Hinchcliffe, on the other hand, won six races during his IndyCar career, which lasted from 2011 to 2021.
These are undoubtedly two men who know the motorsport world well. But what they said before Spa-Francorchamps deserves, at the very least, a more detailed examination.
“Ferrari, as much as I hate this philosophy, in theory, if they have any chance of doing it, I think they should side with a single driver. And right now, with the gap between Charles and Lewis, it’s necessary to support Lewis,” Hinchcliffe said, just a week after Charles Leclerc had secured his first victory of the season at Silverstone.
He cited an example to support his argument: “If we go back to last year, it was Max against the two McLarens, right? They were taking points off each other, which helped their case. But he didn’t have a teammate who could play or interfere and take points off both as well.
“In the case of Ferrari right now, they do have that. They have two drivers who are performing at a very high level. And if they decide to do what we know Ferrari has no qualms about doing and that they have done many times in the past, this is their best chance. It’s still a tough opportunity, but it’s their best option.”
Palmer agreed with this assessment without offering any objection. If Ferrari had fully committed to Lewis Hamilton alone, and had indicated to Leclerc to let Hamilton win at Silverstone, “Hamilton would now be 22 points behind Antonelli in the championship. He would be, I believe, six points ahead of George Russell.”
“And if I were Antonelli and I saw that Leclerc is now working for Hamilton and Hamilton is 22 points behind, the conversation that we started this podcast, with what would be the greatest threat, I believe it would be Hamilton and Ferrari. I think it would be a huge difference. If Fred can orchestrate this with two ambitious drivers, that’s the second part of the question. And it’s a tough aspect to manage.”
With all due respect to both gentlemen, it would also be a complete absurdity.
Hinchcliffe referred to an example where such a unconventional decision in favor of a single driver had almost yielded results for Ferrari: “When Schumacher was completely out of the fight in ’99 after returning to racing after an accident, he played the support role for Irvine to try to win the championship and they almost made it.”
The problem is that Michael Schumacher had no mathematical chance of becoming world champion once he returned to Malaysia and Japan as Eddie Irvine’s teammate. If he had still been in contention, he would never have accepted the number two role. And the then-Ferrari director Jean Todt would never have asked him to do that.
The crucial difference compared to the current situation is that Ferrari’s hierarchy was clearly defined at that time. In 1999 it is due to fate intervening against Schumacher and there was only one Ferrari driver who still had a mathematical chance of becoming world champion.
In the following years, Rubens Barrichello simply could not compare to the German in terms of pure speed and potential for victory. Team orders were already unpopular at that time. But after 21 years, in which Ferrari’s hunger for another title – without leaving anything to fate – had only grown, they were, at least to some extent, understandable.
Twenty-seven years later, the situation is different. Irvine and Barrichello were never at the same level as Schumacher. Leclerc and Hamilton, on the other hand, are two drivers on equal terms. And objectively speaking, their first season together in 2025 – which Leclerc finished ahead, with 242 points to Hamilton’s 156 – does not provide much evidence that Ferrari should ask Leclerc to make the dirty sacrifice of renouncing his own ambitions and driving exclusively in support of Hamilton.
Certainly not after just nine of at least 22 GPs, as Hinchcliffe and Palmer suggest. It’s true that after the Austrian Grand Prix, Leclerc was 46 points behind Hamilton. That sounds like a considerable amount. But when converting it to the old points system from the Schumacher era, when a win was worth only 10 points, it actually translates to just 18 points. And that’s before considering inflated race calendars and additional sprint events.
Leclerc has not given any indication that he has forgotten how to race all of a sudden. Undoubtedly, Hamilton has managed with the new generation of cars to eliminate much of the speed disadvantage he showed last season. But there is no clear trend suggesting that he is now indisputably the best driver at Ferrari, or that he will easily dominate Leclerc after the summer break.
Imagine, for a moment, that Fred Vasseur actually decided to demote Leclerc to number two and place him entirely at Hamilton’s service, changing their positions every time Hamilton found himself behind Leclerc. The first time, it might still be defensible. The second time, the reaction would be huge, and La Gazzetta dello Sport and the rest of the Italian media would have every justification to ask whether everyone in Maranello has lost their way.
And if we take Silverstone and Spa as a reference, I believe there is a very good chance that Leclerc will continue to outpace Hamilton on several more occasions during 2026.
You cannot renew Leclerc’s contract until the end of 2028, thus unofficially declaring that he is the future of the Scuderia, and then ask him to currently be nothing more than a “water carrier.” For the sensitive Monegasque in particular, this would be a devastating blow from which he would never fully recover. And his relationship with the Ferrari management would not recover either.
At the same time, I suspect that Hamilton himself would never consider asking for such a strategy. At 41, he possesses the wisdom that comes with experience. As one of the great champions in the history of motorsport, he has no need to ask for the unconditional support of his teammate. Even if such an approach worked, it would be a world championship forever marked. A stigma on the impeccable reputation he has built as a great athlete and a true Sir.
To make matters worse, the example of 1999 cited by Hinchcliffe contained a significant flaw in its logic. Ferrari had already issued team orders at just the seventh race of that season, at Magny-Cours, instructing Irvine not to finish ahead of Schumacher, thus sacrificing a valuable point in the championship through team orders. “I was told to stay behind him,” Irvine recalled a few years ago in an interview on the YouTube channel Motorsport-Total.com, even though Schumacher “was really fighting for some reason.” And, as he added: “This ultimately cost me the championship.”
Because in the next race at Silverstone, Schumacher broke his leg and was out of the championship fight. Irvine, meanwhile, arrived at the final race in Suzuka holding a four-point lead over Mika Hakkinen. There, Hakkinen claimed a resounding victory, while Irvine finished third behind Schumacher, who had just returned.
If Schumacher had let him through, Irvine would have finished second in the championship – tying points, but losing the title because Hakkinen had more victories. However, with the additional point Ferrari had sacrificed at Magny-Cours, a team order in favor of Irvine at Suzuka would have been enough to crown the man who, in time, was designated number two too early.
Irvine instead of Schumacher would have been Ferrari’s first world champion since Jody Scheckter, which would be a historical anomaly in itself. But the episode illustrates how badly things can end when a team commits to a number one driver too soon. Especially since Ferrari would undoubtedly be exposing itself to a massive global backlash if it adopted such a clearly pro-Hamilton strategy.
There is another factor to consider. The F1 of 2026, with its new cars and still immature power units, remains highly volatile. Drivers like Leclerc, who initially may have struggled to adapt, could find the key as the season progresses. And whether the impression (already quite unstable) that Hamilton has the edge over him will actually hold throughout the season is something that remains to be seen.
I am convinced that Vasseur would never consider following the advice of Hinchcliffe and Palmer in these early days of the season, with 316 championship points still at stake. That Hamilton would not want such an arrangement, and that Leclerc would never accept such a thing. And, above all, that in the end, it won’t matter.
Championships are decided at the finish line, not halfway through the season. Hamilton is only 33 points ahead of Leclerc, and it is far from a sure thing that he will ultimately finish the year as Ferrari’s top driver.
I will continue to listen to the podcast in the future. Palmer remains one of the most knowledgeable experts in the F1 paddock. He notices details that others overlook. He is smart enough to understand even the most complex aspects of an incredibly complex sport and to explain them to fans. Although, in the last episode of the podcast, they happened to talk about nonsense for once – and perhaps should spend another night reflecting on it.
Written by FormulaRapidaAI
SourceID: SRC_53ef857357416cadde80023eb71c2f79eadc38f4