Put to him on Thursday that Leclerc seems to save his hardest wheel-to-wheel driving for the other side of the Ferrari garage, Hamilton did not push back. He told Motorsport.com he had noticed the same pattern.

“Yes. I see what you see. In Singapore, he was fully on the inside into Turn 1, he had won the lead, and he backed off. It was definitely different.”

The contrast the seven-time world champion drew is a pointed one. In the Singapore race, Leclerc lifted when the man on his outside was Max Verstappen. At the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez on Sunday, racing a Ferrari in red for the same piece of asphalt, he did not.

Mexico cost Ferrari a one-two

The flashpoint came at Turn 4 on the opening lap. Both Ferraris arrived too hot, both ran wide, and Leclerc completed the pass with all four wheels off the track. The stewards docked him five seconds, half the usual penalty, because Hamilton had also exceeded the limits. Verstappen slipped between the two red cars and never lost the lead again, winning in Mexico City ahead of Hamilton, with Leclerc fourth.

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Hamilton’s irritation has not dimmed since.

“Naturally I was frustrated, and I’m still frustrated. We had an opportunity to win for the team. We could have easily had a one-two, so we definitely have to work towards making sure that doesn’t happen again.”

He is now pushing for the rules of engagement between the two cars to be formally revisited, with the warning attached to the request unambiguous: another episode like Mexico will cost Ferrari again. Hamilton added that he had no intention of softening the tone until that conversation has happened, and had not been asked to.

A fix Martin Brundle does not believe in

Former F1 driver and Sky Sports commentator Martin Brundle expects a public reset at Interlagos this weekend and is sceptical it will hold. Writing in his column for Planet F1, he pointed out that the Turn 4 squabble “cost Lewis track position quite badly with Max” and had deprived Ferrari of what should have been a comfortable result.

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Brundle described Hamilton and Leclerc as “hardwired racing drivers” and predicted the Scuderia’s post-Mexico summit will produce the usual language about understanding each other, “but in reality, we know that it will” happen again.

Leclerc puts it down to a shared mistake

Leclerc’s own version of the opening lap is less combative. Speaking to Motorsport.com on Tuesday, he framed the incident as the ordinary physics of a first-lap duel between two cars going for the win, with both drivers braking too late and running out of margin.

“Lewis and I both tried to brake very late. We both didn’t make the corner.”

The 2026 championship fight is already settled around the Ferrari row. Andrea Kimi Antonelli clinched his first drivers’ title with third place in Mexico City, leaving the final four races as a test of Ferrari’s constructors’ position and of whether Hamilton and Leclerc can get through a Grand Prix weekend without lining up for the same corner. The 71-lap São Paulo Grand Prix at Interlagos starts at 2pm local time on Sunday, 8 November.

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