Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur shrugs off Hamilton-Leclerc friction fears

MARANELLO, Italy – Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has no concerns about how Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc will get on together next season and expects competition between them to make the team stronger.

Seven-time Formula One champion Hamilton is moving from Mercedes to take the place of Spaniard Carlos Sainz alongside Leclerc at a team who were fighting for the constructors’ championship in 2024.

Sainz and Leclerc won five races between them as Ferrari finished overall runners-up, 14 points behind champions McLaren.

“It’s always a challenge,” Vasseur told reporters at a Christmas lunch at Ferrari’s Fiorano test track, when asked how he intended to manage the relationship between drivers and the challenges ahead.

“I had my challenge this year between Charles and Carlos, but I think it was part of the performance.

“Between Charles and Carlos we had some moments – Monza ’23 or Vegas ’24 – but at the end of the day I think it was beneficial for the performance of the team.

“Charles and Lewis, I’m not particularly worried about this. They have a huge mutual respect. They know each other, they are speaking about this for months now and I think it is much better to fight for one-two or two-three on the grid than for 19-20.”

Hamilton, the most successful driver in the history of the championship, is chasing an eighth title while Leclerc is hungry for his first.

Leclerc is regarded as one of the fastest drivers over a single lap, with his prowess in qualifying eclipsing Hamilton’s recent struggles on a Saturday despite the Briton’s record 104 career poles.

The pair have been mutually complimentary as adversaries, with Leclerc saying he looked forward to learning from Hamilton, who won one world title with McLaren and six with Mercedes.

Vasseur said the Monegasque, who won three races this year in Monaco, Monza and Austin, had raised his game.

“Charles improved a lot in the management, not just tyre management, the management of the race, in the approach before the weekend,” he said.

“For sure it’s never perfect, and we have all to do improvement everywhere, but he is in a better shape today than he was 12 months ago. We still have to work and develop this, but he is on the right way.”

Ferrari have yet to set a date for Hamilton’s track debut in red overalls but his 2025 car will be unveiled in Maranello on Feb 19, the day after Formula One’s unprecedented 10-team livery launch in London.

Hamilton, who turns 40 on Jan 7 and has a record 105 career wins, is likely to have a first outing at the Fiorano test track under rules allowing a limited use of cars that are at least two years old.

Vasseur added that the winter weather made planning tricky, but he had no concerns about the time it might take for the sport’s most successful driver to adapt to his new surroundings.

“He’s not the rookie of the year. I’m not worried about this,” said the Frenchman.

“We know that he will have a lot of procedures to assimilate during these couple of days, but I think he’s experienced enough to do it.

“We have the advantage of the simulator so he’ll be able to do a race simulation, a qualification simulation and be prepared with the steering wheel for the particularity of the car.”

Official testing starts in Bahrain from Feb 26 to 28.

Vasseur said there would be no official presentation of Hamilton, as there was when Michael Schumacher joined in the 1990s.

“We have to be focused on the season,” he said. “It will be a very tight period between the first day and the launch, a matter of weeks.

“I want everybody to focus on performance. We will have the launch of the championship, we will have the launch of the car. It’s already two events and it’s far too much (to do another).”

Hamilton will need a new race engineer, with his long-term sidekick Peter “Bono” Bonnington staying at Mercedes to work with the driver’s 18-year-old Italian replacement Kimi Antonelli.

Vasseur said he knew who would be assigned to Hamilton but kept it to himself. The team boss, whose own efforts to learn Italian have had limited results, joked that he would assist him.

He added: “You know that 99 per cent of the job is in English. I think it’s good to speak a little bit of Italian for the mechanics and for the relationship in the team, but I’m not sure it’s crucial for the performance.”

Also, Valtteri Bottas will return to Mercedes as a reserve driver for 2025, the team announced on Dec 19, after the Finn, 35, left Sauber at the end of the season. REUTERS