Lewis Hamilton has been making one Ferrari complaint that Charles Leclerc doesn’t think is ‘necessary’

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Lewis Hamilton knew he was joining Charles Leclerc’s team when he made the switch to Ferrari. But he may have underestimated how difficult it would be to adapt.

In a recent interview, Hamilton noted that Leclerc ‘drives with enormous oversteer’. Those characteristics have perhaps been built into the car since the Monegasque joined in 2019.

Leclerc has never expressly been the no. 1 driver at Ferrari, unlike the heliocentric Max Verstappen at Red Bull. But he did oust Sebastian Vettel when he first joined, and had a narrow edge over replacement Carlos Sainz.

Hamilton is a driver who likes a planted rear end and has been wrestling with the car on corner exits this season. But that’s not the only complaint he has about the SF-25.

Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc disagree over Ferrari brakes

According to Motorsport Italia, Ferrari have scheduled a test at Mugello in the aftermath of the British Grand Prix. They will use one of their allotted filming days to trial the new rear suspension that’s scheduled to arrive in Belgium.

But there are also ‘rumours’ that they could ‘experiment’ with their brake system. Hamilton was accustomed to Carbon Industrie materials at Mercedes, but Ferrari use Brembo.

Hamilton ‘does not hesitate’ to lament the Scuderia’s brakes and call for ‘interventions’. But the more comfortable Leclerc doesn’t think this is ‘necessary’.

Race engineer Riccardo Adami has repeatedly told Hamilton to be less aggressive on entries this year. That indicates that he’s not slowing the car down enough, thus compromising his through-corner speed and exits.

Lewis Hamilton has identified the same problem he faced in final Mercedes years

Speaking on the F1 Show on Thursday, Hamilton revealed that the ‘working window’ of the 2025 Ferrari is extremely narrow. This was the same issue he wrestled with Mercedes for the first three years of the ground-effect era.

Hamilton experimented with the set-up for years at Brackley, and initially tried to take the same approach with his new team. But he’s now shifting towards Leclerc’s set-up.

That has yielded an improvement in results lately. While he’s still yet to score his first podium, he’s been in the top six in nine of the last 10 competitive sessions.

“This car has the smallest working window,” he said. “Charles has obviously been driving [it] for a long time. He knows it, and he barely makes any changes because it’s already in the window from FP1.

“I’ve been throwing everything at it, and nothing works except that one set-up. The last couple of races I’ve been moving more to that direction, and it seems to be improving.”