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Jenson Button has shared what he found “strange” about the Ferrari teammate battle between Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton at the recent Austrian Grand Prix.
Charles Leclerc’s P8 finish at the chequered flag in Austria on Sunday marked the fifth race weekend in a row that Lewis Hamilton had got the better of him in the Grand Prix format. A stark shift from 2025, in which the Briton only beat his teammate on just three occasions.
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While Hamilton is currently enjoying the best form of his tenure with Ferrari, Leclerc is struggling, with it looking like the seven-time world champion will join Carlos Sainz as the only two drivers to beat Ferrari’s golden boy over the course of a season in equal machinery.
As one of the few drivers to get the better of Hamilton in a teammate battle (2011), Jenson Button has offered some advice to the struggling 28-year-old, as well as pinpointing what he found strange about the Ferrari drivers’ battle from the most recent Austrian Grand Prix.
Jenson Button found Charles Leclerc’s pace deficit to Lewis Hamilton in Austria ‘strange’
Despite qualifying ahead of Hamilton at the Red Bull Ring last weekend, Leclerc’s race pace woes continued as the 41-year-old displayed his superiority in the Grand Prix.
Hamilton was tipped as a favourite to win the Austrian GP in the lead-up to the race weekend, but extreme levels of tyre degradation scuppered his chances in the end, with the win going to George Russell as the Ferrari star came home in P5.
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“A lot of it comes down to the regulations, how the cars have changed from last year to this year,” Button said during Viagogo’s Paddock Pass with select media, including F1 Oversteer. “The car suited Charles better last year, and it suits Lewis better this year.
“Once you put that behind you, you just need to work as hard as you can with your engineer to develop the car around you a bit more, in your direction. Just copying the guy on the other side of the garage’s setup, it does not work if you have a different style of driving.”
Having spent three years alongside Hamilton at McLaren, Button certainly knows a few things about his tendencies with setting up an F1 car. The 2009 F1 world champion then went on to highlight the “amount of incidents” Leclerc has had as his “biggest issue” this year.
“That definitely puts you on the back foot; it takes away a bit of confidence,” Button continued. “For whatever reason, he’s had brake issues. He’s changed manufacturers, in terms of the brake material that he uses now, but it didn’t help him in the last race.
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“For me, the strange thing was that Charles has always been super quick, and he’s had maybe too many incidents, but in Austria, he just didn’t have the pace of Lewis.
“It will change through the season, because certain tracks suit certain drivers, but we all know how talented Charles is, so he will bounce back.
“It’s just he’s also a very emotional character, so pulling yourself out of that rut sometimes is difficult, and you need strong people around you, which I think he has.”
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