Will Buxton has warned Ferrari that the events of last weekend’s Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix could signal “first real test” of the relationship between Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.
Last Sunday’s race at Zandvoort was perhaps a missed opportunity for the Scuderia, with Leclerc having taken second place in the Sprint on Saturday.
The SF-26’s race pace appeared up to scatch, with Leclerc admitting it was focusing on that, rather than its nous over a single lap.
And despite McLaren and Mercedes holding their own at the front, Hamilton was looking quick enough to potentially mount a challenge, until he caught up to Leclerc.
The Brit asked over radio why the Monegasque was not requested to move aside, and with the pit wall appearing to be indecisive over its strategy, Hamilton clapped back, sarcastically: “Great way of wasting time, good job!”
Hamilton eventually finished fourth, narrowly behind George Russell in third, with Leclerc a couple of seconds back in fifth.
After the race, the seven-time World Champion told both the team and the media that he was to seek an “offline” discussion to determine what went wrong, and used former team Mercedes as benchmark as to how to work as a team in these sorts of situations.
But the next day, issued a message of contrition on social media, and warned Ferrari’s rivals that “we’re coming.”
For former F1 presenter-turned-IndyCar commentator Buxton, this could be a flashpoint that the Maranello-based squad must overcome.
“Is this Ferrari’s first real test, of the Charles-Lewis relationship?” he asked on the Up To Speed podcast.
“If not a test of their relationship a test of how the team handles it because Charles is the golden child, always has been. He’s Ferrari through and through, probably never going to race anywhere else. It’s his place and he’s been there since he was a kid.
“Then you’ve got Lewis. The GOAT, seven-time world champion and you can’t please both. On an F1 team, one driver is going to be pissed and one driver is going to come out happy. That’s just how it works, especially in these kind of scenarios.
“You can’t have to take your medicine sometimes and realise that you are going to piss one of them off. You can’t keep both of them happy in every single eventually. It doesn’t happen.
“Lewis has experience of a team that executes immediately at Mercedes and he wants that championship-winning mentality at Ferrari, because unless you have that you are never going to win a title.
“So I can see the frustration in Lewis of being like ‘guys we’re making ourselves look like dicks here. This is stupid’, because he has experience of the other side of the coin.
“Is it a Ferrari problem? Is it a Charles-Lewis problem? How quickly do they have to nip it in the bud? Do they have to just figure out what they are doing and actually get it written down or understand that the level of execution they have at the moment just simply isn’t what a championship-winning team has.”
Ferrari will be hoping for both drivers to score big next weekend, as F1 makes its usual jaunt to Monza for the Italian Grand Prix, its home race.
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