Ex-Ferrari boss tells Vasseur to lead as Hamilton rages

Maurizio Arrivabene, who spent just over four years as Ferrari’s team principal in Formula 1, has publicly told Fred Vasseur to take control of the Scuderia.

Arrivabene made the comments during an appearance on Sky Sports Italy, with quotes later published by Formula Passion.

His advice comes directly after the Mexico City Grand Prix, where Ferrari drivers Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc clashed on track for the second time this season.

The incident happened at Turn 1 and escalated at Turn 4.

Leclerc tried to pass Hamilton around the outside, neither driver made the corner, and Leclerc cut across the grass.

Leclerc did not give the position back.

He received a five-second time penalty.

Hamilton dropped to third place, and race winner Max Verstappen took the victory.

Over the team radio, Hamilton was furious.

“The stewards are basically handing Charles this win,” he said.

Post-race, Hamilton demanded “serious talks” behind the scenes to ensure these internal clashes do not happen again.

But this was not the first time the two Ferrari drivers have collided.

At Ferrari’s home race in Monza in September, Hamilton and Leclerc also clashed at Turn 1.

After that race, reports emerged that Ferrari’s top brass were “dissatisfied” with Vasseur’s leadership.

Now the same dynamic has repeated in Mexico.

“The team principal must act like a team principal, and the driver must act like a driver,” Arrivabene said.

He continued: “Sometimes drivers make statements that are a bit of a load of rubbish, in the sense that they try to get the whole team, the whole company, on their side.

“That’s when the team principal has to step in, acting like a team principal and saying: ‘Listen up, lads, the next time something like this happens, the …’”

Arrivabene did not finish the sentence in the published quotes, but his meaning was clear.

He is telling Vasseur to draw a line before the situation escalates further.

The criticism of Hamilton has not come only from Arrivabene.

Ralf Schumacher, the former F1 driver, also blasted Hamilton over his radio outburst.

Schumacher accused Hamilton of acting like a mob boss over the team radio, comparing him to Al Capone.

Damon Hill, the 1996 world champion, criticized Leclerc for letting his emotions get the better of him.

Both drivers have now been publicly singled out for their conduct in Mexico.

But Arrivabene’s comments are aimed squarely at the man in charge.

Fred Vasseur became Ferrari’s team principal at the start of the 2023 season.

He replaced Mattia Binotto, who resigned after the 2022 campaign.

Vasseur came from Alfa Romeo, where he had run the Sauber team for several years.

He is known as a calm, methodical manager who prefers to handle conflicts behind closed doors.

Arrivabene is suggesting that approach is not working with two drivers as ambitious as Hamilton and Leclerc.

Hamilton joined Ferrari at the start of the 2025 season after leaving Mercedes, where he won six of his seven world championships.

Leclerc has been with Ferrari since his F1 debut in 2018 and is seen as the team’s long-term project.

Both drivers want to win.

Both drivers believe they have the right to be the team leader.

And both drivers have now taken each other out of race-winning positions twice in the same season.

Arrivabene knows this dynamic from his own time at Ferrari.

He ran the team from late 2014 until early 2019, a period that included the intense rivalry between Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen.

During those years, Ferrari often struggled to manage two top drivers without internal conflict.

Arrivabene was eventually replaced by Binotto after the 2018 season.

Now he is watching the same pattern play out again.

Ferrari has not won a drivers’ championship since 2007, when Räikkönen took the title.

The team has not won a constructors’ championship since 2008.

In 2026, the Scuderia entered the season with its strongest driver lineup in years.

Hamilton is the most successful driver in F1 history by wins and pole positions.

Leclerc is widely regarded as one of the fastest drivers over a single lap.

Together, they were expected to challenge Red Bull and McLaren for both championships.

Instead, they are fighting each other.

Peter Windsor, a prominent F1 analyst, offered a different take on what cost Hamilton the Mexican GP win.

Windsor said the real problem was that Hamilton started the race on used soft tires.

Hamilton locked up in Q2 on his first timed lap, forcing him to use a new set of softs that could have been saved for the race.

Windsor believes that if Hamilton had fresh tires at the start, Leclerc would not have been able to get close enough to attempt the pass at Turn 4.

“Lewis said afterwards it was that moment that cost him the Mexican Grand Prix,” Windsor said on his YouTube channel.

“And he may well be right because if Charles hadn’t done that, Lewis probably would have just settled into the lead.”

But Windsor’s analysis does not change the fact that the two Ferrari drivers made contact on track.

And it does not change the fact that the team principal is now being told publicly by a predecessor to take control.