Juan Pablo Montoya criticized Charles Leclerc for not immediately heeding a Ferrari order during the Dutch Grand Prix in Formula 1. For the former driver, the Monegasque’s attitude opened a “horrific Pandora’s box” within the team.
On lap 42, Lewis Hamilton was right behind Leclerc with tires four laps newer and a pace significantly higher. Ferrari asked Leclerc to pit while the two pursued different strategies, but the Monegasque only came in on the following lap after a second instruction. Hamilton reacted on the radio: “Nice way to waste time, guys, good job.”
Montoya compared the episode with the way Mercedes managed a position swap between George Russell and Kimi Antonelli. “Mercedes did very well, executed very well. What Leclerc did by not obeying the engineer opened a horrible Pandora’s box, because he is telling the team: ‘I am above your orders and, if I disagree with something, I won’t do it,’” he told AS Colombia.
The Colombian does not believe that Hamilton would have secured the podium even with a different execution, but he understands that Ferrari did not offer the British driver the best possible opportunity. “He would have come much closer. And he spent a lot of the tires trying to overtake and follow Leclerc,” he assessed.
In Montoya’s view, the team should have given the Monegasque an ultimatum. “You need to find another four tenths or we need to swap the positions. You have two laps,” he exemplified. “Hamilton was pulling half a second per lap away. Find half a second, let him pass or we go to the boxes.”
Despite the criticism, Montoya downplayed the impact on the relationship between the drivers. According to him, conflicts of this kind are normal in motorsport and do not necessarily mean a rupture between Hamilton and Leclerc. “It’s race. It’s normal that their relationship isn’t as good as people think or see on TikTok or Instagram,” he concluded.
