Rosberg tells Ferrari to take action after Hamilton and Leclerc clash in Mexico

Fred Vasseur has been told he needs to take a firmer hand at Ferrari after Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc clashed at the Mexican Grand Prix.

Hamilton and Leclerc fought for the lead on the opening at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, with the teammates delivering conflicting views on their battle.

Nico Rosberg urges Fred Vasseur to intervene after Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc clash

Hamilton lined up on pole position in Mexico, but he was challenged for the lead by Leclerc when his teammate stormed up behind him after taking advantage of the slipstream on the long run to Turn 1.

While Leclerc backed out of his initial challenge, he then made his move around the outside into Turn 4.

Leclerc braked late, while Hamilton, defending his lead, braked even later. Both Ferrari drivers ran wide and off the track, with Leclerc emerging in the lead while Hamilton also lost second place to Max Verstappen.

The Briton, declaring he was “p***ed off” by the situation, blamed Leclerc.

“We’re going into Turn 4, first and second. If we just held position, I think anything can happen in the race, but when your teammate works against you, and then you lose positions like that, it’s definitely tough,” he said.

As for Leclerc, who was given a five-second penalty for overtaking Hamilton off the track, he said: “I was expecting to fight for the lead. We both made a mistake, but I paid with a penalty.”

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Hamilton went on to state, not for the first time, that Ferrari needs to set out rules of engagement for the drivers.

“We’ll just talk about it offline, and it’s not really worth saying too much more,” he said. “We don’t have rules of engagement, and whether or not that will change anything from Charles’ side, I don’t know.”

Leclerc agreed, saying the team “will talk about it” as both drivers were “very much on the limit” on the Lap 1 antics.

Rosberg, who was engaged in his own teammate tussle with Hamilton during their years together at Mercedes, believes Ferrari team principal Vasseur needs to take a firmer hand.

According to the German, if Vasseur doesn’t lay down the law to his drivers, Hamilton and Leclerc will take matters into their own hands.

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“Really Fred Vasseur, he needs to start to act,” the 2016 world champion told Sky F1.

“Once again, as Lewis said before the race, there was no discussion, like clear racing guidelines between the two.

“It needs to happen otherwise it’s just going to keep going like this.

“And it gets really bad when the drivers take it in their own hands and disregard whatever is being discussed and just take it in their own hands and sort it out on track and barge the other guy out of the way.

“That can very quickly happen, and it’s already kind of happening.”

But while it could be argued that neither Ferrari driver gave an inch in their Mexican Grand Prix tussle, Rosberg believes it was Leclerc who started it.

“On that first wheel-to-wheel that they had in Turns 2 and 3, Charles was bouncing over the inside into Lewis. He was not holding the line.

“So already that was too much from Charles, so he messed up already there.”

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