Respected Italian journalist Leo Turrini has warned Ferrari that the step between friends and “never” friends can be “very short”.

His warning comes just days after Lewis Hamilton officially became a Ferrari driver and Charles Leclerc’s F1 2025 team-mate.

Charles Leclerc won’t ‘give a damn’ about Lewis Hamilton’s CV

Much has been said about Hamilton’s box office arrival at Ferrari, even the Scuderia taking the unusual step of revealing details about the Briton’s first day in Maranello where he met with team principal Fred Vasseur and drove the simulator as he took part in an “immersion programme, visiting all the various departments to get to know the team”.

However, it’s Day Three of his Ferrari career that’s creating the most interest as Hamilton will put in his first laps on track in a Ferrari Formula 1 car on Wednesday.

The seven-time World Champion is spending Wednesday laying down the laps at the Fiorano circuit in a 2022 F1-75. Charles Leclerc will join him out on track, the long-time Ferrari driver also participating in the ‘wake-up’ test.

But while Leclerc wasn’t spotted in any of Monday’s photographs, official or fan-snapped, well-known Italian journalist Turrini revealed Hamilton and the Monegasque driver have been speaking a lot lately with Hamilton picking Leclerc’s brain about all things Ferrari.

“Lewis and Charles have talked a lot, these days,” Turrini revealed on his blog.

“Hamilton has thoroughly explored the racing department, he has participated in summits with Vasseur and the engineers, he has used the simulator. And not infrequently he has asked Leclerc for information.”

However, he warned today’s cooperation may not last very long.

“There is great mutual respect between the two,” he continued. “After that, one wants to be ahead of the other and vice versa.

“From friends but never to friends (quote Venditti) the step can be… very short.

“The Monegasque is not the type to have inferiority complexes: he has already shown with Seb Vettel that he doesn’t give a damn about other people’s CVs. Lewis knows this perfectly well.

“It won’t be all roses (or rather, Red) and flowers, trust me.”

It’s not the first time this week that Turrini has warned that Leclerc won’t play second fiddle to Hamilton just because he’s a seven-time World Champion.

Although the Italian says Hamilton’s mandate is to win a World title with Ferrari, which would mark his record-breaking eighth and the Scuderia’s first since 2007, he reckons Leclerc knows – as does Hamilton – that he needs to be the one to impose himself as Ferrari’s lead driver.

“Now it is essential to win,” the 64-year-old said of Hamilton’s arrival. “In short. Paired with Leclerc, who as I know him will certainly not be his doormat!, they must restore the lost happiness to the Prancing Horse. Eighteen years without a World Championship: a nightmare. A lost generation.

“Hamilton knows all these things. In fact, he even blurts out a few words of Italian. And even next to him the ever-cold John Elkann shouts “Forza Ferrari”. Keep going like this and hell will freeze over.

“And Leclerc? Does anyone know how Carletto is experiencing it, the frenzy for the Baronet?

“I believe that both, Carletto and the Baronet, are aware that imposing oneself with the Reds is priceless and perhaps for this reason, for the burden of responsibility, champions like Alboreto, Mansell, Prost, Alonso, Vettel have failed in Maranello.

“If they are together, even Hamilton and Leclerc, there is already a reason.”

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