Jacques Villeneuve on Ferrari: “Hamilton/Leclerc – it’s just weird”

The Ferrari team battle between Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc continues to be a talking point – which is hardly surprising, given that the two keep getting in each other’s way.

Nine-time Grand Prix winner Leclerc called out the public and the media in Baku. The Monegasque said: “Sometimes I go a bit too far when we’re battling, sometimes he does. But I think what happens at Ferrari is often over-analysed and over-discussed.”

“At Monza, there were team battles involving three of the four top teams, including cars ending up in the gravel, but I get the impression that people are still only talking about Ferrari. That’s completely unnecessary. Lewis and I know exactly what we need to do on the track, and we don’t need any special rules of conduct to do so.”

One person who’s watching closely is Jacques Villeneuve. The 55-year-old Canadian – 163 Grands Prix, 11 wins – certainly doesn’t believe that it’s all just being blown out of proportion. For the 1997 F1 champion, there are certainly some inconsistencies when it comes to Ferrari’s two alpha males.

Speaking as a Sky pundit in Baku, Villeneuve says: “If you look at the two Ferrari drivers, they react very strongly to being beaten by their team-mate – much more so than at any other team. It’s almost as if it were the end of the world.”

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Jacques Villeneuve

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“It seems more important to them to finish ahead of their team-mate than to be on pole. It really is a bizarre dynamic, a strange balance they have internally – it’s an internal battle.”

“It’s really intense and has a huge impact on the two drivers. You can clearly see how the two are sometimes elated, sometimes dejected, simply because they’re ahead of or behind their team-mate.”

For Grand Prix winner Juan Pablo Montoya, one thing is certain: “The two of them will clash again; I have no doubt about that. They’re still not giving an inch to each other.”