Leclerc has finally put his own voice to what his team-mate had already described: the two Ferrari drivers have been in friction, and it had been building for some time.

“Of course there is tension, of course we want to finish ahead of each other,” the Monégasque told RacingNews365 ahead of the São Paulo Grand Prix. He added that the Mexico fallout “took proportions that are way too big, but it has been around for way too long.”

Earlier coverage had leaned on Hamilton’s side of the story. The seven-time champion said after the Mexico race that Ferrari could have finished one-two if the pair had worked together. Leclerc, until now, had spoken only in sporting terms about the incident itself.

Mexico set the scene

The flashpoint was the opening lap of the Mexico City Grand Prix on 2 November. Leclerc went off at Turn 4 trying to pass Hamilton, cut back onto the track and kept the lead, picking up a five-second penalty that he accepted.

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“The penalty was deserved in a way,” he told reporters after the race, noting that Hamilton had also run wide at Turn 4. The stewards reduced the baseline 10-second sanction to five seconds because Hamilton was off the road too. Max Verstappen capitalised and won the race.

The team meeting principal Fred Vasseur wanted to hold in Mexico never happened. Leclerc flew back to Monaco for the birth of his daughter and stayed in Europe longer than planned, pushing the conversation to the next Grand Prix weekend.

A Thursday meeting in São Paulo

The two drivers sat down together on the Thursday evening before the Interlagos race, and Hamilton said the matter was dealt with directly between them, not through Vasseur.

“We sat and we spoke, we squashed it. And we’re moving on,” the Briton said, as quoted by Autosport. “We still have a huge amount of respect for each other.”

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Leclerc’s framing matched. He called the matter a closed chapter, said both drivers needed to look ahead, and pushed back on the idea that silence was the better option, arguing that talking almost always makes things easier straight away.

Starting from the back at Interlagos

The rapprochement does not help either driver on race day. Ferrari arrived at Interlagos knowing both cars faced engine-component penalties, and qualifying confirmed how much work the race ahead will take. Leclerc qualified fourth in a wet session but drops 10 places; Hamilton went out in Q2 and carries a 65-place grid penalty, which pins him to the back.

Lando Norris took pole in a rain-affected Interlagos qualifying, ahead of George Russell and Kimi Antonelli.

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