Vasseur encourages Hamilton, Leclerc competition

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur is happy for Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc to engage in a healthy rivalry this year and remains confident it will not descend into internal politics.

Hamilton joined Ferrari from Mercedes over the winter in one of the biggest driver moves in the history of the sport, while Leclerc — 13 years Hamilton’s junior — has been at Ferrari since 2019 and was part of the team’s driver academy before that.

The two drivers have expressed their excitement about racing as teammates in 2025 and have started the season on good terms — including playing games of online chess in recent weeks.

Vasseur stressed the importance of maintaining a good relationship in the team, but said he had no concerns about tensions between the two.

“At this part of the season, all the teams are world champions, all the teammates are in their honeymoon, and so on and so on! It’s like this in F1,” Vasseur said.

“But the first weeks of collaboration between the two [drivers] was mega good. I’m not surprised at all, they spent a couple of hours last year during the [pre-race drivers’] parades to discuss. They were able to build up the relationship.

“We are starting in very good shape now. The most important thing is to keep this relationship, to continue to work as a team and to push as a team. But I’m quite confident.”

Teammate rivalries in F1 have a history of boiling over when a championship is on the line, with one of the most recent examples being Hamilton’s pairing with Nico Rosberg at Mercedes between 2013 and 2016.

But Vasseur expects his two drivers to learn from each other and said he would encourage healthy competition in order for them both to raise their game.

“It’s always an opportunity and one of the skills of the driver is to try to always improve,” he said. “A good way to improve is also to take the experience or the performance of your teammates, because the driver is the closest of you and you can have access to the data that you can work with.

“If you are clever, you can do a step with the potential of your teammate. I’m fully, fully sure and I’m right, because we already had two TPCs [testing of a previous year’s car] and the shakedown today that it will be the case.

“Honestly, I’m not scared at all with this, because we need to have this kind of emulation. I spoke about it last year between Charles and Carlos [Sainz]. It was already the case, but as a team, if we want to perform, we need to have two drivers performing.

“We need to have two drivers in a kind of competition, a positive competition and a positive emulation. And I’m sure that it will be the case.”