Lewis Hamilton wants Ferrari rules after Leclerc Italian GP clash

Lewis Hamilton wants Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur to establish clear rules of engagement after his clash with teammate Charles Leclerc on the opening lap of the Italian Grand Prix.

Hamilton was furious with his Ferrari teammate and accused him of pushing him off the track as Leclerc tried to stay ahead of Hamilton, who had attacked him into the Variante Del Rettifilo chicane.

Lewis Hamilton calls for Ferrari rules after Charles Leclerc clash

The teammates lined up third and fourth on the grid with Leclerc ahead.

Hamilton tried to muscle his way past Leclerc at Turn 1 of the chicane, but his teammate shut the door on him as they came through Turn 2.

Hamilton went off into the gravel and dropped to 10th place. He blamed Leclerc, telling Ferrari: “Charles pushed me off.”

He continued to insist after the race that the corner was his, as he was “ahead in Turn Two by the apex – I was ahead.”

It’s not the first time this season that Hamilton and Leclerc have clashed, with the teammates fighting wheel-to-wheel in the early rounds with a “kiss”, as Hamilton called it in China, or three.

But while it was “fun” back then, Hamilton now wants Vasseur to take a strong hand and implement rules of engagement.

“Ultimately, it comes from the top and it trickles down as decisions,” the seven-time world champion told PlanetF1.com and other accredited media.

“It starts with Fred. There’s only so much you can say, so much you can push and shove at the mountaintop.

“Yesterday, I said we’ve got to look at how we communicate because if we continue to travel the same path, we get the same result. We keep getting the same result.

“We’ve got to change things because it’s not helping us move forward. I think they’re receptive to it, and we’ll take it offline, particularly after the next race, to try and look at how we can proceed to make things different so that the same things can’t keep happening.”

Hamilton previously raced under team rules when he and Nico Rosberg were fighting wheel-to-wheel for world titles.

“I think it comes down to rules of engagement,” he added.

“When I was at Mercedes, we had a written rule of engagement. We never really, really had it too bad – maybe between me and Nico a couple of times – but more often than not it was good.

“Here there are no rules, and I think that’s something that we need to try and address.”

Pressed on his previous comments that things needed to change at Ferrari, Hamilton was asked if it was a “cultural thing”.

He put a stop to that.

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“I know what you guys are trying to do,” he said. “I don’t want to get into arguing and fighting about my team.

“At the end of the day, I’m trying my hardest to make this team and help this team get to where it needs to be.

“We didn’t do so well today, but it’s painful enough as it is to be badgering my guys. They go home to their families, they’re working really, really hard. Yes, we didn’t get it right today. It isn’t good enough.

“But we’ll go back to the drawing table and we’ll come back. You’ll show up with good energy in the next race and we’ll keep trying.”

Hamilton trails championship leader Kimi Antonelli by 76 points in the Drivers’ standings after the Italian claimed his seventh Grand Prix win of the season at Monza.

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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