Leclerc hits back at ‘wrong’ Hamilton conclusions after Ferrari battles

Charles Leclerc believes people outside of Ferrari have drawn the “wrong” conclusions about his battles against Lewis Hamilton because they race for Ferrari.

Leclerc and Hamilton have had a several on-track spats this season, but while their early-season tussles were labelled “fun” by Hamilton, he wasn’t laughing after Monza.

Charles Leclerc explains Lewis Hamilton battles at Ferrari

Hamilton was furious with Leclerc and accused him of pushing him off the track on the opening lap of the Italian Grand Prix as the latter tried to stay ahead of the seven-time champion, who had attacked him into the Variante Del Rettifilo chicane.

“Look, I don’t race dirty,” Hamilton said of the incident when speaking with PlanetF1.com and others. “I’ve always raced clean and fairly, and always left space.

“So I don’t think they [the team] should be worried about me. I’ve come into the team and tried to be respectful of space and definitely not put the team in jeopardy. I stand by that. That’s all I can talk about is on my side.”

Leclerc later apologised to his teammate, saying both drivers “went too far”, but questioned the “narrative that we are one against the other”.

He doubled down on that during an FIA drivers’ press conference ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend where he suggested Ferrari’s actions are overly scrutinised, with people often coming to the wrong conclusion.

Asked if he was happy with the way he and Hamilton raced one another, Leclerc said: “Yes, I am

“Of course there’s been moments where I went too far, where Lewis went too far, but I think the key in that is to discuss.

“I’ve been with Ferrari since 2019 now, and I know how everything we do is over-analysed, over-discussed, and very often the conclusions that are taken after those kinds of fights are the wrong ones.

“We only need to speak with Lewis to kind of understand we’ve been doing that all our lives.

“We both want to win, and there’s competition, but we also want to win as a team and to make Ferrari come out on top eventually. That is the priority.

“I enjoyed fighting with Lewis, and that’s what’s exciting in Formula 1, is to be fighting against the best, and Lewis is definitely up there, so for me it’s a big challenge, but I’m enjoying it.”

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The 28-year-old was also asked about Ferrari’s rules of engagement between the two drivers.

According to Hamilton, who said Mercedes had “written” rules, “here there are no rules, and I think that’s something that we need to try and address”.

Leclerc, though, says Ferrari’s rules are very clear – the team just doesn’t feel a need to write them down.

“Sure,” he insisted when asked about the rules.

“Turn 2 in Monza is something that I’ve said repeatedly that it’s not something that we want to see ever happen again, and that’s going too far on my side, but I’ve been through it already.

“I think it’s pretty clear that we don’t necessarily have to write those things for it, I think it’s clear enough.

“But again, I feel like it’s being over-discussed and over-analysed when it’s about the red cars, and that’s not really fair.

“In Monza, if you look, the four top teams, three of them had fights like this with the car finishing in the grass and at the end of the day, the only thing we are speaking about still now is the red cars, which I don’t think is fair.”

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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