Who slept worst last night: Jolyon Palmer

It will be 1 August when I return to full-time duty as a Formula 1 journalist. That means I currently have plenty of time to listen to podcasts while hiking through the Austrian mountains. For example, the official preview by F1 Nation ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix, featuring experts I consider among the very best in the business: James Hinchcliffe and Jolyon Palmer.

Palmer will probably still be familiar to many fans. He raced for Renault in F1 in 2016 and 2017, before being replaced by Carlos Sainz towards the end of his second season. Hinchcliffe, meanwhile, won six races during his IndyCar career, which lasted from 2011 to 2021.

So these are two men who unquestionably know their motorsport. But what they had to say ahead of Spa-Francorchamps is, at the very least, worthy of closer scrutiny.

“Ferrari, as much as I hate this philosophy, in theory, if they have any chance of this, I think they do have to back one. And right now, with the gap between Charles and Lewis, you have to back Lewis,” Hinchcliffe said, of all times just one week after Charles Leclerc had claimed his first victory of the season at Silverstone.

He cited an example to support his argument: “You go back to last year and it was Max versus both McLarens, right? They were taking points off each other, which helped his cause. But he didn’t have a team-mate that could help play or run interference and take points off both of them as well.

“In Ferrari’s case right now, they do. They’ve got two drivers that are performing at a very high level. And if they do decide to do what we know Ferrari have no issue doing and have done plenty of times in the past, that is their best shot. It’s still a long shot, but it is their best shot.”

Former IndyCar driver James Hinchcliffe and Jolyon Palmer

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Palmer agreed with that assessment without offering any objection. If Ferrari had fully committed themselves to Lewis Hamilton alone, and had instructed Leclerc to let Hamilton win at Silverstone, then “Hamilton right now would be 22 points behind Antonelli in the championship. He’d be, I think, six points up on George Russell.

“And if I was Antonelli and you’ve got Leclerc now working for Hamilton and Hamilton is 22 points behind, the conversation we started this podcast with, with what would be the bigger threat, I think it would be Hamilton and Ferrari. I think it’s that big a difference. Whether or not Fred can actually orchestrate that with two ambitious drivers, that’s the second part of the question. And that’s a tricky one to do.”

And with all due respect to both gentlemen, it would also be utter nonsense.

Hinchcliffe referred to an example where such an unconventional decision to favour one driver had almost worked out brilliantly for Ferrari: “When Schumacher was totally out of it in ’99 after he came back from his leg break, he played the supporting role to Irvine to try to win the championship and they nearly did it.”

The catch is that Michael Schumacher no longer had any mathematical chance whatsoever of becoming world champion himself when he returned in Malaysia and Japan as Eddie Irvine’s team-mate. Had he still been in contention, he would never, ever have accepted the role of number two. And then-Ferrari team principal Jean Todt would never, ever have asked him to.

The crucial difference compared to today’s situation is that Ferrari’s hierarchy was crystal clear back then. In 1999 it was because fate had intervened against Schumacher and there was only one Ferrari driver who still had a mathematical chance of becoming world champion.

In the years that followed, Rubens Barrichello simply could not hold a candle to the German when it came to outright pace and race-winning potential. Team orders were already unpopular back then. But after 21 years in which Ferrari’s hunger to finally win another title – while leaving nothing to chance – had only grown stronger, they were, at least to some extent, understandable.

Michael Schumacher, Rubens Barrichello, Ferrari F1-2000

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Twenty-seven years later, the situation is different. Irvine and Barrichello were never in Schumacher’s league. Leclerc and Hamilton, by contrast, are two drivers on equal footing. And objectively speaking, their first season together in 2025 – which Leclerc finished ahead, scoring 242 points to Hamilton’s 156 points – provides very little evidence that Ferrari should now ask Leclerc to make the brutal sacrifice of giving up his own ambitions and driving solely in support of Hamilton.

Certainly not after just nine of at least 22 GPs, as Hinchcliffe and Palmer suggested at the time. It’s true that after the Austrian Grand Prix, Leclerc trailed Hamilton by 46 points. That sounds like a lot. But if you convert that into the old points system from Schumacher’s era, when a race win was worth only 10 points, it amounts to just 18 points. And that was before bloated race calendars and additional sprint events.

Leclerc has given absolutely no indication that he has suddenly forgotten how to race. Without question, Hamilton has managed over the winter – and with the new generation of cars – to eliminate much of the pace deficit he showed last season. But there is no clear trend suggesting that he is now unequivocally Ferrari’s stronger driver, or that he will comfortably dominate Leclerc after the summer break.

Just imagine for a moment that Fred Vasseur actually decided to demote Leclerc to number two and place him entirely at Hamilton’s service, swapping their positions every time Hamilton found himself directly behind Leclerc. The first time, it might still be defendable. The second time, the backlash would be enormous, and La Gazzetta dello Sport and the rest of the Italian media would be entirely justified in asking whether everyone in Maranello had taken leave of their senses.

And if we take Silverstone and Spa as our benchmark, I believe there’s a very good chance that Leclerc will still get ahead of Hamilton on several more occasions in 2026.

You simply cannot extend Leclerc’s contract through the end of 2028, thereby unofficially declaring him the future of the Scuderia, and then turn around and tell him that, for the time being, he is nothing more than a water carrier. For the sensitive Monegasque in particular, that would be a devastating blow from which he would never truly recover. Nor would his relationship with Ferrari’s management.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

Photo by: Guido De Bortoli / LAT Images via Getty Images

At the same time, I suspect Hamilton himself would never even consider asking for such a strategy. At 41 years of age, he possesses the wisdom that comes with experience. As one of the greatest champions in motorsport history, he has no need to beg for the unconditional support of his team-mate. Even if such an approach were to work, it would be a world championship forever tainted. A blemish on the spotless reputation he has built as both a great sportsman and a genuine Sir.

To make matters worse, the 1999 example cited by Hinchcliffe contains a significant flaw in its logic. Ferrari had already issued team orders in just the seventh race of that season, at Magny-Cours, instructing Irvine not to finish ahead of Schumacher, thereby sacrificing a valuable championship point through team orders. “I was told to stay behind him,” Irvine recalled a few years ago in an interview on the Motorsport-Total.com YouTube channel, even though Schumacher “was really struggling for some reason”. And, as he added: “It ultimately cost me the championship.”

Because at the very next race at Silverstone, Schumacher broke his leg and was out of the championship fight. Irvine, meanwhile, arrived at the season finale in Suzuka holding a four-point lead over Mika Hakkinen. There, Hakkinen claimed a commanding victory, while Irvine finished third behind Schumacher, who had only recently returned.

Had Schumacher let him through, Irvine would still only have finished runner-up in the championship – level on points, but losing the title because Hakkinen had more race wins. However, with the additional point Ferrari had sacrificed at Magny-Cours, a team order in Irvine’s favour at Suzuka would have been enough to crown the man who, in hindsight, had been designated number two far too early.

Irvine rather than Schumacher becoming Ferrari’s first world champion since Jody Scheckter would have been a historical anomaly in its own right. But the episode illustrates how badly things can backfire when a team commits itself to a number-one driver too early. Especially since Ferrari would undoubtedly expose itself to a worldwide shitstorm were it to adopt such a clearly pro-Hamilton strategy.

There is another factor to consider. F1 in 2026, with its all-new cars and still immature power units, remains highly volatile. Drivers like Leclerc, who may initially have struggled to adapt, could well find the key as the season progresses. And whether the (already rather shaky) impression that Hamilton currently has the upper hand over him will actually survive the entire season remains to be seen.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari

Photo by: James Sutton / LAT Images via Getty Images

I am convinced that Vasseur would never contemplate following the advice of Hinchcliffe and Palmer this early in the season, with 316 championship points still up for grabs. That Hamilton would not want such an arrangement, and that Leclerc would never accept it. And above all, that in the end it will not make any difference anyway.

Championships are decided at the finish line, not halfway through the season. Hamilton is only 33 points ahead of Leclerc, and it is far from being set in stone that he will ultimately finish the year as Ferrari’s better-placed driver.

I will continue listening to the podcast in the future regardless. Palmer remains one of the most knowledgeable experts in the F1 paddock. He notices details that others overlook. He is intelligent enough to understand even the most complex aspects of an incredibly complex sport and to explain them to the fans. Even if, in the latest episode of the podcast, he happened to talk nonsense for once – and perhaps should sleep on it one more night.

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– The Motorsport.com Team