Lewis Hamilton has officially become a Ferrari driver, and one of the most intriguing subplots for the 2025 season will be his relationship with Charles Leclerc. As things stand, the two drivers appear to get on well.
Hamilton and Leclerc have mutual interests outside of racing, including fashion and music. They even arranged for their pet dogs, Roscoe and Leo, at last year’s British Grand Prix.
On the race track, they seem to share similar principles. Leclerc even complained to the F1 race director about Max Verstappen’s tactics against Hamilton during the 2021 season.
But the key question is whether they can stay on good terms when competing in equal machinery. Leclerc has been with Ferrari since 2019 and prevailed against his first two teammates, Sebastian Vettel and Carlos Sainz.
Hamilton represents his toughest test yet, even if this isn’t the best version of the legendary driver. He may have an advantage in the first half of the 2025 season at least as the 39-year-old undergoes an adaptation period.
Naomi Schiff says Leclerc could make Hamilton ‘paranoid’ by speaking to the team’s engineers in Italian. But former F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya reads the situation very differently.
Lewis Hamilton told to be wary after Charles Leclerc’s spat with Carlos Sainz in Las Vegas
Speaking to AS Colombia, Montoya predicted that the ‘inner peace’ at Ferrari may not last following Hamilton’s arrival. He thinks it will sew ‘a thousand doubts’ in Leclerc’s head.
His theory is that Ferrari have promised Hamilton superior treatment, including greater influence over car development, during negotiations. That may have convinced him to leave Mercedes.
Leclerc is bound to be fearful of this scenario, Montoya says, and could react emotionally. He pointed out that the Monegasque ‘showed his claws’ at the Las Vegas GP towards the end of last year.
Seething that Sainz hadn’t obeyed team orders in the manner he expected, he issued a furious radio message after the chequered flag. Engineer Bryan Bozzi tried to calm him down as he complained that ‘being nice’ gets him nowhere.
“I don’t know how much inner peace there is in Ferrari,” Montoya said. “I think Leclerc is not going to play the game.
“I don’t know how they are going to handle it, because when they have a person like Hamilton coming in as a teammate, whether you like it or not, you will have a thousand doubts in your head that he has something superior and that he has priority over you.
“Hamilton, I think, has a very clear expectation. And the people at Ferrari who brought Hamilton were very clear throughout the conversation about how they were going to do things. The one who is going to lead the development of the car from now on, what he likes and what he doesn’t like, is going to be 100% Lewis.
Addressing the Vegas spat, he added: “He showed his claws. Let’s see what happens.”
Charles Leclerc must back up the promise that earned him his nickname
Leclerc’s new partnership may only last a couple of years. Hamilton’s Ferrari contract runs until the end of 2026, though there is a mutual option for 2027.
After that, it’s seen as inevitable that Oliver Bearman will join Ferrari. He will, of course, have to deliver at Haas alongside Esteban Ocon.
By the time Hamilton leaves, Leclerc will hope to have bagged at least one world championship. He’d cement himself as a legend of the sport by winning the intra-team battle and lifting the vase-shaped trophy.
A teenage Leclerc warned that he’d never let his teammate take the title. That earned him his nickname – ‘Il Predestinato’ (The Predestined) – but he now has to back it up.
