Lewis Hamilton has addressed the possibility that he faces an intra-team rivalry with Charles Leclerc at Ferrari in this year’s Formula 1 season.
The Brit enters the 2026 campaign appearing buoyed and motivated to improve, after a difficult first year with the Scuderia.
Hamilton failed to finish on the podium across the 24-race calendar for the first time in his 19-season career, amid a torrid struggle with the uncompetitive and troublesome SF-25 car.
Leclerc similarly failed to secure a single Grand Prix victory, but did finish in the top three seven times, as well as scoring a brilliant pole position at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
On paper, a Hamilton-Leclerc pairing in the same team is a mouthwatering prospect if the tools match their talents, and naturally, that will conjure the idea of the pair battling each other.
But the seven-time World Champion has debunked any idea of the two being rivals, acknowledging Ferrari comes before any individual.
“I don’t see it that way,” he told Corriere della Serra, recognising the magnitude of the Maranello-based squad‘s enormous following in its homeland.
“Ferrari is one thing: in Italy and abroad, people follow it like a religion and love it like the Pope. My goal is not to divide the fans.
“We both want to win, and obviously, I want to be the one to do it, and I’m working towards that.
“But the team comes first. Charles is a phenomenal driver in terms of his driving and his ethics, and he’s been here for eight years. But I’m coming into this championship in a different way.”
Hamilton concluded by reiterating his thoughts from pre-season testing in Bahrain, saying that he has put a lot of his “DNA” into the SF-25’s successor – the SF-26 – and feels boosted by that fact.
‘I’ve been working on the 2026 car for 14 months, on the simulator and with the engineers.
“Compared to the previous one, which I found already designed and could change very little, this car has a bit of my DNA in it, and that excites me.”
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