Rob Smedley: Lewis Hamilton got inside Charles Leclerc’s head at Canadian GP

Lewis Hamilton got inside the head of Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc in Canada as Hamilton recorded his best grand prix result yet with Ferrari.

That is the claim of former Ferrari engineer Rob Smedley, who referred to Leclerc’s blunt self-assessment after qualifying. Hamilton outqualified Leclerc twice and raced on to P2 at the Canadian Grand Prix, crossing the line 30 seconds up the road from the Monegasque driver.

Lewis Hamilton’s Canada performance impacted Charles Leclerc, says Rob Smedley

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Hamilton has won the Canadian Grand Prix a record-equalling seven times. There was to be no eighth victory, but he did finish second, winning out in a battle with former title rival Max Verstappen to secure that runner-up result.

Much of the momentum has gone Leclerc’s way thus far in the Hamilton versus Leclerc intra-team battle at Ferrari. Canada did not follow that narrative.

Hamilton had the edge over Leclerc throughout the race weekend.

“Honestly, it’s one of, if not the worst weekend of my career,” Leclerc bluntly stated after qualifying eighth, a tenth and three positions down on Hamilton.

Leclerc went on to finish the race P4, albeit over half a minute behind Hamilton, adding that his result was “much better” than the feeling he had in the car.

Leclerc’s comments were addressed by Smedley, while speaking on the High Performance Racing podcast.

Hamilton landed a psychological blow on Leclerc in Montreal, according to Smedley.

“He’s always brought something special around Montreal,” Smedley said of Hamilton.

“He was quicker than Charles. That got inside Charles’ head, because all of a sudden he started to claim that he’d had the worst weekend of his career in Formula 1.

“Clearly, I think if Lewis had been three places further back, I wouldn’t have thought that Charles would have referred to his weekend as being the worst of his career.”

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Hamilton’s breakthrough Canadian GP came after he decided to pause his use of the Ferrari simulator, arguing that the virtual and real-world car setups were not aligning for him.

“This whole simulator thing, I spoke to a couple of guys there who kind of shrugged their shoulders when I asked about it,” Smedley revealed.

“He said that he didn’t go to do his work on the simulator pre-Canada, and that’s what gave him the freedom, because he had a notion that the simulator was perhaps dragging him off into directions that he didn’t like.

“Then of course, he has a sample of one and all of sudden it’s statistically true that if you don’t go on the simulator, you’re on the podium [laughs].”

Hamilton has reduced his deficit to Leclerc in the drivers’ standings to three points heading into Leclerc’s home race, the Monaco Grand Prix.

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