Lewis Hamilton criticised Charles Leclerc over the lap-one incident that cost Ferrari likely victory in the Mexico City Grand Prix, suggesting his team-mate's driving came down to "a mentality thing". Hamilton and Leclerc battled for the lead during the first four corners of Sunday's race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in a duel that saw the latter cut across the second chicane to take over first place from the pole-sitting Briton. Having also run slightly wide himself in defence of the position, Hamilton was overtaken on the exit of Turn Five by Max Verstappen.
That proved significant as when Leclerc was handed a five-second penalty by stewards for running off track and gaining an advantage in the Turn Four incident, Verstappen took over the lead of the race when the lead Ferrari served the sanction at his pit stop. Verstappen went on to win, with Hamilton eventually finishing second after passing Leclerc at the second race start following a red-flag period for Valtteri Bottas' high-speed crash. A frustrated Hamilton, who had expressed unhappiness over the radio on several occasions with the fact Leclerc had only been handed a five-second sanction by stewards, said after the team's eventual two-four finish that they required "serious talks behind the scenes" in a season that has contained other flashpoints between the team-mates.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player Speaking in the post-race press conference, Hamilton was asked about Leclerc and whether a different approach was required against a team-mate when it came to fighting for race wins. "Before I joined this team, when I was in Mercedes, I watched and witnessed the back and forth between Charles and Carlos [Sainz] for several races where they were battling so much that the person ahead just pulled away, and they had the pace to actually win the race," said Hamilton, who is in his second season at Ferrari alongside Leclerc. "But it's one thing when that's happening for fourth and fifth, as opposed to first and second, and you lose the win.
"The guy's 28 years old, so I don't think it's an age thing. I think it's a mentality thing. Like either I win or none of us do', and it shouldn't be that.
"It should be us having getting that one-two because it's still a good feeling. "Silverstone, I could have gone all kamikaze on him and taken him off and lost us the win but instead it was first and third. "For me, I'm happy to for the team to have experienced that.
But I'm hopeful we'll work towards a better working place in the future." "The Stewards have determined that both cars entered turn 4 with excessive speed and therefore neither would have been able to make the corner on track, as demonstrated by the fact that car 44 [Hamilton] which was on the inside, had to go off track to make the corner."Car 16 [Leclerc] was therefore not entitled to claim the corner due to the excessive entry speed. The driver then completed an overtake whilst off track and accordingly this warrants a penalty."The baseline penalty guideline is 10 seconds however in mitigation is the fact that car 44 was also off track on the inside of car 16 and this occurred early in the first lap." Speaking to Sky Sports F1, Hamilton said Ferrari's wider interests on the first lap had not been put first. "In the race, I gave it everything," he said after finishing within one second of Verstappen.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
