Lewis Hamilton says Ferrari has left it far too late to give him meaningful support in the 2026 Formula 1 drivers’ championship battle.
The seven-time world champion finished a distant sixth at the Italian Grand Prix after being pushed into the gravel by team-mate Charles Leclerc on the opening lap.
Leclerc then spun into the Parabolica barrier at the end of lap two, triggering a red flag that further disrupted the race’s natural order.
The incident proved costly for Hamilton’s title hopes, with Ferrari slipping 122 points behind Mercedes in the constructors’ standings as a result of the chaotic weekend.
Kimi Antonelli now leads the drivers’ championship, sitting 76 points clear of Hamilton and 66 ahead of Mercedes team-mate George Russell, while Leclerc lies fifth, 112 points adrift of Antonelli.
Hamilton was blunt about what the result means for his season, telling media including Motorsport.com: “I think from today, we’ve just lost so much ground to them on points. It’s far too late for those decisions to come. It’s many, many weeks too late.”
The British driver was equally clear that Ferrari’s problems stem from a lack of clear internal structure between the two drivers at the team.
“I think it comes down to rules of engagement,” he said, drawing a contrast with his time at Mercedes, where a written agreement governed how he and Nico Rosberg competed on track.
“When I was at Mercedes, we had a written rule of engagement. We never really had it too bad. Maybe moments with me and Nico a couple of times. But more often than not it was good. Here, there are no rules.”
Hamilton appeared to hold his ground on the question of who was responsible for the Turn 2 collision, directly contradicting Leclerc’s suggestion that both drivers shared responsibility for what happened.
Leclerc had told reporters after the race “we went too far,” framing the clash as a mutual misjudgement between two drivers fighting for position at the first chicane.
Hamilton rejected that framing entirely, saying: “I was ahead in Turn 2. By the apex, I was ahead. There was no ‘we’ in it.”
He also addressed the broader culture within Ferrari, pointing to team principal Fred Vasseur as ultimately responsible for how the team manages its drivers on track.
“I’ve come into the team and tried to be respectful of space and definitely not put the team in jeopardy,” Hamilton said. “You have to speak to Fred about the other side and decisions that are taken there. Ultimately it comes from the top. It trickles down, decisions. It starts with Fred.”
The Monza weekend exposed deeper organisational issues at Ferrari, with the team also struggling to coordinate slipstream runs during qualifying at a circuit where working together on straights is essential.
Hamilton was nearly knocked out in Q2 and later sent out of the pits too late on his first Q3 run, leaving him without an adequate tow from the cars ahead.
Despite the frustration, Hamilton said he remains committed and acknowledged the hard work being put in by staff back at the factory.
“I’ll get up tomorrow morning and I’ll give it my best,” he said. “The guys back at the factory really, really are giving it everything. We’re not executing as cleanly as well as we can. Easily not as well as now the other teams are. But we were at some points in the season.”
Hamilton indicated that Ferrari intends to sit down and address the internal processes that allowed the Monza incident to occur, suggesting meaningful change could still come this season.
“I think they’re receptive to it and we’ll take it offline, particularly after the next race, to try and look at how we can procedurally make things different so that the same thing can’t happen,” he said.