(Motorsport-Total.com) – Dear readers,
It will still take until August 1st before I return full-time to the daily business as a Formula 1 journalist. So at the moment, I have a lot of time to listen to podcasts while hiking through the Austrian mountains. For example, the official preview from the colleagues at F1 Nation before the Belgian Grand Prix. With experts whom I consider among the best in their field: James Hinchcliffe and Jolyon Palmer.
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Jolyon Palmer is probably still known to many fans. He drove for Renault in Formula 1 in 2016 and 2017 – in 2017 as teammate to Nico Hülkenberg, until he was replaced by Carlos Sainz towards the end of the season. And James Hinchcliffe won six races in his IndyCar career from 2011 to 2021 in the North American top formula series.
What Palmer and Hinchcliffe said before Spa
So two men who know the subject of motorsport well. But what they said before Spa-Francorchamps is at least worth a content check.
“In theory: If Ferrari wants to have a chance [at the championship], then they have to – as much as I hate this philosophy – support one driver. And currently, with the gap between Charles and Lewis, that has to be Lewis,” said Hinchcliffe, ironically one week after Charles Leclerc’s first win of the season in Silverstone.
He gave an example to argue his logic: “Take last year, Max against the two McLaren drivers. They took points away from each other, which helped Max. But he also had no teammate who could help him and take points away from the McLaren drivers.”
“Ferrari already has that. They have two drivers performing at a very high level. And if they decide to do what we know Ferrari has no problem with, and what they have done very often in the past, then that is their best chance [to win the drivers’ championship]. It is still unlikely, but it is their best chance.”
Palmer agreed with this assessment without contradiction. If Ferrari fully focused only on Lewis Hamilton and had asked Leclerc in Silverstone to let Hamilton win, “then Hamilton would now be 22 points behind Antonelli in the championship. He would be six ahead of George Russell […].”
“And if I am Antonelli, and Leclerc works for Hamilton, and Hamilton is only 22 points behind, then […] Hamilton and Ferrari would be the biggest threat [to Antonelli]. I think that makes a big difference. Whether Fred [Vasseur] can orchestrate that with two such ambitious drivers is another question. It would certainly be difficult.”
And it would be, with all due respect to the two gentlemen, absolute nonsense.
What 2026 has to do with 1999 – or not …
Hinchcliffe gave an example of how such an unconventional decision against a number 1 driver almost worked out for Ferrari once: “When Schumacher came back in 1999 after his leg break, he fully supported Irvine to try to win the championship – and they almost succeeded.”
The catch is: Michael Schumacher had no mathematical chance to become world champion in 1999 when he made his comeback as a short-term support for Eddie Irvine in Malaysia and Japan. If he had, he would never have accepted the role as number 2. And the then Ferrari team principal Jean Todt would never have asked him to.
The difference to today’s situation is: Back then, Ferrari had clear conditions. In 1999, because fate stood in Schumacher’s way. There was only one driver with a mathematical chance to become world champion.
And in the following years, Rubens Barrichello could not even come close to matching the German in terms of speed and chances of winning. Team orders were already unpopular back then. But after 21 years in which Ferrari’s hunger to finally win a title again and leave nothing to chance grew ever greater, it was at least somewhat understandable.
It is way too early for a team order!
That is different 27 years later. Irvine/Barrichello and Schumacher never played in the same league. Leclerc and Hamilton, on the other hand, are two drivers on equal footing, and their first joint season in 2025, in which Leclerc had the better end with 242:156 points, objectively provides little indication that Ferrari should now impose the brutal call on Leclerc to give up on himself and only drive for Hamilton.
Especially not after only eight of (at least) 22 Grands Prix, as Hinchcliffe and Palmer suggested. True, Leclerc was 46 points behind Hamilton after the Austrian Grand Prix. Sounds like a lot. But if you convert that to the old points system from Schumacher’s time, when a win was worth ten points, that would be just 18 points. And that was before bloated race calendars and additional F1 sprints.
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Leclerc is unlikely to have suddenly forgotten how to race. Certainly, Hamilton managed over the winter and with the new cars to somewhat eliminate his speed deficit from last season. But at least I cannot yet see a clear trend suggesting that he is clearly the Ferrari driver who will have Leclerc comfortably under control after the summer break.
Imagine for a moment that Fred Vasseur really decided to degrade Leclerc to number 2 and put him entirely at Hamilton’s service, swapping positions every time Hamilton is directly behind Leclerc. The first time would just be acceptable. The second or third time, the outcry would be huge, and Gazzetta & Co. would rightly denounce whether they still have all their marbles in Maranello.
And if we take Silverstone and Spa as a benchmark, I believe: The likelihood that Leclerc will be ahead of Hamilton a few more times in 2026 is high.
You cannot seriously extend Leclerc’s contract until the end of 2028, unofficially declare him the future of the Scuderia – and then convey to him that he is now just a water carrier. Especially for the sensitive Monegasque, that would be a blow from which he would never recover. And neither would his relationship with team management.
At the same time, I suspect that Hamilton would not even come up with the idea of demanding such a strategy. He is equipped with the wisdom of 41 years of life, and as one of the greatest champions in motorsport history, he does not need to beg for unconditional support from his teammate. Even if that would work well (which it would not), it would be a world championship title forever tainted by a shadow. A stain on his white vest as a great sportsman and true sir.
“A drink with Eddie Irvine” about Magny-Cours 1999
Moreover, the cited 1999 example contains a serious logical error. Because Ferrari already issued the order at the seventh race of the season in Magny-Cours that Irvine was not allowed to finish ahead of Schumacher, thus sacrificing a championship point for the Northern Irishman via team orders. “I was told to stay behind Michael,” even though his pace seemed “very slow” to him, Irvine said a few years ago in a video series on the YouTube channel of Motorsport-Total.com. And: “In the end, that cost me the championship.”
Because: Schumacher broke his leg at the next race in Silverstone and was out of the championship fight. Irvine, on the other hand, came to the last race of the season in Suzuka with a four-point lead over Mika Häkkinen. There Häkkinen won convincingly, Irvine finished third behind the recently returned Schumacher.
If Schumacher had let him pass, Irvine would still have only been vice world champion – tied on points due to fewer wins. But: With the additional point from Magny-Cours, one team order for Irvine in Suzuka would have been enough to make the prematurely designated number 2 world champion in hindsight.
Irvine and not Schumacher as the first Ferrari world champion since Jody Scheckter would have been a mistake in history anyway. But it shows that the shot of committing too early to a number 1 can also backfire badly. Especially since Ferrari would undoubtedly expose itself to a worldwide shitstorm with a clear pro-Hamilton strategy.
Much can still happen in 2026 …
In addition: Formula 1 in 2026, with its brand-new cars and not yet mature power units, is still quite volatile. Drivers like Leclerc, who may have had some initial difficulties, could get the hang of it as the season progresses. And whether the (already quite shaky) impression that Hamilton has him under control will last the whole year remains to be seen.
I am sure that Fred Vasseur would not even come up with the idea so early in the season, when 316 championship points are still up for grabs, to follow the advice of Hinchcliffe and Palmer. That Hamilton would not want that and Leclerc would not accept it. And, above all, that in the end it will make no difference anyway. The final reckoning will show Hamilton only 33 points ahead of Leclerc, and it is far from set in stone that he will finish the season as the better placed Ferrari driver.
I will still gladly listen to the podcast in the future. Jolyon Palmer is one of the most competent experts in the Formula 1 paddock. He notices details that others do not. And he is intelligent enough to understand and explain even the most complex connections in a complex sport to the fans. Even if he talked nonsense in the last episode of the podcast exceptionally and maybe should sleep on it again.
Your
Christian Nimmervoll
Note: It is in the nature of things that this column reflects my subjective perception. Anyone who disagrees is welcome to discuss it with me, on my Facebook page “Formula 1 inside with Christian Nimmervoll”. There you will not primarily find “breaking news” from the Grand Prix circus, but mainly strictly subjective and sometimes quite biting assessments of the most important developments behind the scenes of Formula 1.
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