Lewis Hamilton’s rivalry with Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc has been reopened following his candid comments after a hugely encouraging Australian GP

Ferrari star Lewis Hamilton has reminded the Formula 1 world that while Charles Leclerc may be his team-mate, that doesn’t mean he isn’t competition. The seven-time world champion was kept agonisingly short of a first F1 podium in Ferrari colours on Sunday after Leclerc pipped him to third at the Australian Grand Prix.

Hamilton, 41, was encouraged by the team’s performance but suggested Ferrari paid for their decision to not pit during a virtual safety car. The Englishman was also brutally honest regarding his intentions to overtake Leclerc, even going so far as to claim he would have had the Monaco marvel had the race gone on a little longer.

“I went into today and none of us knew what the true pace was going to be,” he said after Sunday’s race. “But I felt great from the get-go and was obviously closing a gap right at the end to Charles.

“A couple more laps and I think I would have had Charles, maybe one or two more laps. So there are lots and lots of positives to take.”

The relationship between Hamilton and Leclerc has been genial since the former moved to Maranello from Mercedes last year. The pair have spoken about their mutual respect for one another on numerous occasions, but that doesn’t mean tensions haven’t flared.

Tea break sarcasm

One infamous moment unfolded at last year’s Miami GP when Hamilton was left unimpressed with the team’s tactics while trailing his team-mate. Hamilton was imploring engineer Riccardo Adami to let him past Leclerc instead of “burning up his tyres” in the wake of Leclerc’s dirty air.

The decision was finally made to let Hamilton past, at which point he fired back: “Have a tea break while you’re at it!” And although that show of frustration wasn’t fixated on Leclerc himself, it was the Monegasque’s slower drive at the time that had caused him to despair.

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Hamilton and Leclerc have shared a healthy relationship since the latter moved to Ferrari(Image: Mark Sutton – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)

He went on to tell his team the sequence “was not good teamwork” and later clarified he simply wanted a decision to be made faster because he wants to win. And it’s clear that if he feels he’s faster, he’s unafraid to take on Leclerc to give his team (and himself) the best chance at victory.

Monza meltdown

Arguably the most tense encounter between Hamilton and Leclerc, however, came at Monza in 2019, long before the pair became comrades. Leclerc was responsible for squeezing his future colleague off the track in a manoeuvre Hamilton took umbrage with.

Hamilton called Leclerc’s driving in that situation “dangerous” and suggested he wouldn’t have eased off were it not for the fact he was in contention for the world championship. Thankfully, the duo have had no such close scrapes since working under the same banner.

‘Team first’

Above all else, Hamilton has stressed time and again that Ferrari’s needs come ahead of his or Leclerc’s. And it was in the build-up to this weekend’s Australian GP that he again reiterated the team is paramount – though he couldn’t resist mentioning his own ambitions, too.

“Do I think I will be ahead of Leclerc? I don’t see it that way,” he told Corriere della Sera last week. “Ferrari is one entity. In Italy, and elsewhere, people follow it like a religion and love it like the Pope. My goal isn’t to divide the fans; we both want to win.

“Of course, I would like to be the one on top, and I am working toward that, but the team comes first. Charles is a phenomenal driver in how he drives, his work ethic, and he has been here for eight years.”