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The idea of the second driver at Ferrari has given Italian fans ‘trauma’ since the days of Rubens Barrichello, and Lewis Hamilton has failed to end it.
Barrichello was Michael Schumacher’s teammate for 104 races at Ferrari, an F1 record. The Brazilian was the clear number two within the team, as the German won five titles in a row between 2000 and 2004.
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Schumacher described Barrichello as his best Ferrari teammate, but their partnership did not come without controversy. Team orders were commonly in effect, most notoriously at the 2002 Austrian GP, when Barrichello gave up the win to his teammate on the line.
While F1 teams are far from deploying those sorts of orders today, Ferrari’s ‘second driver’ legacy has stuck with them since Barrichello, and now, Hamilton has not been able to change it.
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Italian fans still have ‘trauma’ over Ferrari’s second driver – Lewis Hamilton has not stopped it
Joining Ferrari last year, Hamilton partnered with Charles Leclerc, who has been with the team in F1 since 2019. The seven-time champion struggled to adapt in his first year in Maranello, with his teammate comprehensively beating him.
Things have gotten closer between the pair in 2026, with Hamilton currently leading the intra-team battle on Sundays. But even with this improvement, Nelson Piquet Jr says Leclerc is Ferrari’s number one driver, and Hamilton is the number two.
Leclerc has signed a new deal with Ferrari, and as journalist Roberto Chinchero notes, he is the Maranello outfit’s ‘fixed point’ within the team for the long term.
His status at Ferrari has never ‘been in question’. While Hamilton has far more experience and success in F1, he is arguably the clear number two in the team, and that ‘trauma’ from Italian fans about the second driver is still very real.
Chinchero discussed the idea via Motorsport.com Italia: “We’ve seen that it was difficult even for Lewis Hamilton to fit in at Ferrari; perhaps Berman is already more familiar with the environment – he’s clearly been part of the Driver Academy for a long time – but there are always some doubts.
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“You need a fixed point, and that fixed point is that Leclerc remains Leclerc. I don’t think this role has ever been in question, and by that I don’t mean, mind you, first or second driver, because this is a particularly sensitive topic in Italy, especially in Italy.
“I’d say, because there’s still the trauma of so many years with Barrichello, right? Barrichello has, in a way, left us with this legacy of the second driver.
“In reality, though, the track decides; on paper, Antonelli could have been a second driver based on experience, but the championship says otherwise. Those days are over.
“Today, the cars and the teams are able to field two perfectly identical cars; the developments are almost always… perhaps only Red Bull at this point that falls short, and this, in my opinion, isn’t something Red Bull needs to fix, partly because it gives an image that isn’t the best.
“When updates arrive, they come for both cars. It’s how it is at Ferrari, that’s how it is at McLaren, that’s how it is at Mercedes. The idea of the second driver has kind of stuck with us.”
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