Ferrari’s team-orders problem has moved from theory to the pit wall. On lap 42 at the Dutch Grand Prix on 23 August, Charles Leclerc was told to box while Lewis Hamilton closed on him with four-lap fresher tyres, running a different strategy and lapping significantly quicker. Leclerc did not respond, and had to be told a second time before he finally pitted the following lap.

The delay cost Hamilton the chance to attack George Russell for third. He crossed the line fourth, 0.8 seconds behind the Mercedes, and let his frustration out on the radio: “Great way of wasting time guys, good job.”

“I was above your orders”: Montoya’s warning

Former Williams and McLaren driver Juan Pablo Montoya said the moment itself matters less than the precedent it sets inside the garage.

“What Leclerc did by not obeying the engineer opened a horrible Pandora’s box, because he’s telling the team: ‘I’m above your orders, and if I don’t agree with something, I’m not going to do it,'” Montoya told GPblog.

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“That’s terrible. It’s terrible because it creates a bad atmosphere within the team and creates drama within the team.”

Leclerc has offered his own account of the sequence, insisting he was reacting to conflicting calls rather than defying the pit wall.

“At first I was asked to stop, then, toward the end of the lap, I was asked to stay on track, which I did, and a lap later, I was asked to stop,” Leclerc said.

Steiner: “Your teammate has done better up to now”

For former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner, the fix has to be a formal hierarchy, agreed before drivers pull the visor down, not shouted through an engineer mid-race.

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“You cannot implement team orders during a race. You need to agree them beforehand,” Steiner said.

Hamilton sits third on countback, level on 183 points with George Russell and 59 behind championship leader Andrea Kimi Antonelli; Leclerc is a further 28 points back in fifth. Steiner argues the math leaves Ferrari one honest conversation.

“If one of the two can win, it is Lewis. So, as somebody else has shown, if you want to win, it’s very tight up front there. You need to put your money on the guy who has got the better chance,” he said.

He spelled out how the meeting with Leclerc should go.

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“That’s the guy in front, who has got more points, and that is the only selling point to Charles. ‘Hey buddy, your team-mate has done better up to now. Now he’s number one.'”

Steiner said the decision belongs to team principal Fred Vasseur, not chairman John Elkann.

Smedley: Ferrari’s “one and only” title path

Former Ferrari race engineer Rob Smedley has been making the same argument since Silverstone in July, when Leclerc took his first win since 2024. Speaking on the High Performance Racing podcast and reported by Crash, Smedley framed it as a probability call rather than a loyalty one.

“I think that although it goes against my logic, there are too many variables coming up. … That is the one and only strategy that they’ve got of Lewis winning this world championship,” Smedley said.

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Vasseur has publicly left the door open to team orders, and said after Zandvoort that the team would take a “deep look” at what went wrong.

The Italian Grand Prix at Monza runs on 4-6 September, Ferrari’s home weekend.

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