Leclerc accepts blame for Hamilton Monza clash as Vasseur rejects Ferrari crisis talk

By Jack Shaw · Madrid, Spain · Published: 17:15 BST

• Charles Leclerc has accepted responsibility for the second-corner contact that put Lewis Hamilton on the gravel at the Italian Grand Prix, telling Motorsport.com: “I obviously know I went too far in Turn 2.”
• Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur says he has held “good meetings” with both drivers and rejects any suggestion of an internal crisis at Maranello.
• Carlos Sainz, Leclerc’s Ferrari team-mate from 2021 to 2024, played it down: “When you have two competitive team-mates, these kind of situations are always going to happen.”

The Leclerc Hamilton Monza clash is, officially, over. Days after the pair went side by side through Monza’s opening chicane and Hamilton ended up in the gravel, Leclerc has stopped sharing the blame and taken it — while his team principal spends the Spanish Grand Prix build-up insisting the Scuderia is not in meltdown.

Leclerc Hamilton Monza clash: what actually happened at Turn 2

The two Ferraris were level through the first chicane at Monza when Leclerc took what Motorsport.com describes as the standard racing line out of Turn 2, guiding Hamilton onto the gravel. Leclerc’s own race ended with a shunt at the Parabolica on lap two, and he said afterwards that “we went too far”. Hamilton was having none of the plural: “there was no ‘we’ in it,” the seven-time world champion said, before criticising Ferrari’s communication and race execution.

After reviewing the footage with Vasseur and speaking to Hamilton directly, Leclerc changed his framing. “The rules of engagement, I think it’s kind of clear that we never want to see a car of the same team in the grass,” he said, adding that the conversation “definitely did not affect the good relationship that we have”. For the full chronological timeline of the Monza fallout, follow the rolling coverage at ReadMotorsport F1.

The expert angle: Vasseur has just drawn the line McLaren wouldn’t

The interesting part isn’t the apology — it’s that Ferrari has quietly done in five days what other front-running teams spend whole seasons avoiding. Vasseur told Motorsport.com he “reminded them of some fundamental principles of the way I manage the team” and that he will “continue to stick to them”. Read that again. That is a team boss saying the principles already existed and the drivers needed reminding, not one writing a new rulebook after the event.

He backed it with a pointed bit of history: when Ferrari won in Melbourne on strategy, he sent engineer Ravin Jain to the podium; when they lost one on strategy, he faced the cameras himself. “My job is to protect the hundreds of people in the team and to take responsibility,” he said. “That is what I have asked the drivers to do as well.” Accountability as team policy is a deliberately unglamorous message — and it is why Vasseur can credibly reject the crisis framing rather than merely deny it.

Sainz, who lost his seat to Hamilton, offered the most useful perspective in Madrid on Thursday: he and Leclerc argued “two or three times a year” and sorted it “the morning after”. Leclerc noted there had been friction between other team-mates at Monza, yet only Ferrari’s pairing got talked about. He is not wrong — McLaren spent the same week reviewing its own rules of engagement after Norris and Piastri collided.

So which is the healthier way to run two alpha drivers — Ferrari’s reminder of existing principles, or a formal review? Then read our guide to F1’s first Madrid Grand Prix at the Madring, where both Ferraris go again this weekend.