Lewis Hamilton has made clear he is not requesting preferential treatment over Charles Leclerc, even as he remains one of the more realistic championship challengers heading into the final rounds.
Leclerc’s retirement from the Italian Grand Prix has left the Monegasque driver 112 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli, with just 258 points remaining across the last 10 rounds.
Hamilton’s deficit to Antonelli stands at 76 points, leaving the seven-time world champion as a genuine, if unlikely, dark horse for the title.
Despite the mathematics favouring Hamilton within Ferrari, he was direct when asked whether Leclerc should now play a supporting role to his title bid.
“That’s not actually really what I’ve been asking for,” Hamilton said, firmly rejecting the suggestion of team orders in his favour.
“It’s really just making sure we’re executing to make sure we get the best result for the team. Instead of us working against each other and finishing fourth and fifth, maybe we can work together and get a podium, pull off more points.”
Hamilton’s consistency has been the cornerstone of his championship challenge, as he is the only driver this season to have finished every grand prix inside the top ten.
The Briton has never finished lower than sixth in 2026, a remarkable record given Ferrari’s continued struggle to match Mercedes on outright pace across the season.
Ferrari have failed to secure a single pole position this year, with Hamilton identifying the power unit deficit as a key factor behind their straight-line speed disadvantage against the Silver Arrows.
“Mercedes, if you look at the last race, they were six tenths a lap quicker on the straights,” Hamilton said, acknowledging the scale of the challenge his team faces.
“Pretty much most of the other tracks, it was three or four tenths. We were losing just on the straights,” he added, underlining how systemic the gap has been throughout the campaign.
He acknowledged that a recent engine upgrade, while a positive step forward, was never expected to close the gap to Mercedes entirely in one move.
“We knew that the last upgrade wasn’t going to be a silver bullet and close that gap completely. But for me, it’s really positive to see us continuously stepping forward,” Hamilton said.
Rather than fixating on what Mercedes are doing, Hamilton says Ferrari’s priority must be maximising every available opportunity on weekends where rivals might slip up.
“As I said, rather than focus on them, I think our focus should just be, how we can do the best and execute the best on our weekends, because there’ll be weekends where they’re exceptional, and there’ll be weekends where they maybe drop the ball,” he explained.
Hamilton remains measured but clear-eyed about what it would take for Ferrari to capitalise, stressing that consistency and optimisation are the keys to any potential title swing.
“As long as we just focus on our consistency and trying to optimise our weekends, maybe there’s going to be a moment where we are able to capitalise on, perhaps, their shortcomings,” he concluded.