Overview
- An opening-lap battle between Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton at the Mexico City Grand Prix left both off track, led to a five-second penalty for Leclerc, and allowed Max Verstappen to take the win.
- Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur brought Hamilton and Leclerc together in Sao Paulo and both drivers said they had 'squashed' the issue and would move on.
- Max Verstappen and former insiders publicly criticised Ferrari's decision to run two equal-status drivers, arguing a clear number-one/number-two hierarchy would reduce risky intra-team moves.
- The Mexico incident directly changed the race outcome and matters for the standings because Ferrari remains second in the constructors' championship with three rounds remaining.
- Analysts caution the truce may not hold when the SF-26 is fighting for wins, and they note Ferrari's power-unit limits and the drivers' competing ambitions raise a real risk of further damaging incidents.