The best driver pair is (finally) Ferrari’s
The resurgence of Lewis Hamilton, back to being competitive at high levels after a forgettable 2025, and the finally positive and encouraging weekend with which Charles Leclerc ended an objectively difficult period, certify the strength of the Ferrari home drivers’ pair. Thus, after a year and a half of waiting, now finally the Prancing Horse can truly boast – both on track and not just on paper – the best pair on the entire starting grid. Yet, however, the points lost in recent weekends by Andrea Kimi Antonelli, with the gap from the pursuers more than halved compared to a few weeks ago, raises a doubt: isn’t it that, with two strong and competitive drivers, capable – as seen in Silverstone – of taking points from each other, it constitutes a risk of losing the contest against Mercedes?
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But are team orders needed? Rob Smedley speaks
A doubt to which the former Ferrari engineer, Rob Smedley, is convinced he has the answer. And it is affirmative: the Scuderia should, in his opinion, favor one of the two drivers, and incidentally Lewis Hamilton, the one currently better placed in the standings with his 147 points, 39 more than those collected so far by Charles Leclerc (108). An opinion that the former race engineer of Felipe Massa at Maranello (and then also at Williams) expressed during the latest episode of the High Performance Racing podcast: “I am 100% in agreement (with the idea that Ferrari should prefer one of the two drivers, ed). And I have to go against my logical sense in saying that I think doing something extreme like this is the only chance for Ferrari to win the world championship”.
Read more Hamilton: “Slower reflexes? At the start I was faster than Antonelli who is 19 years old…”
“I think if Ferrari managed to surpass Mercedes in terms of car performance – adds Smedley – and then allowed the drivers to race each other with such a wide gap between Lewis and Charles, the probability of winning the world drivers’ championship would significantly decrease. But it also goes against my logic because there are too many variables still in play… Why would they really do it? However, I believe this is the only strategy available to Ferrari to make Hamilton win this world championship”.
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