Charles Leclerc addresses frozen out fears after Lewis Hamilton ‘documents’ reveal

Charles Leclerc has insisted that he remains “definitely involved” in Ferrari’s development process after Lewis Hamilton revealed he has been flooding the team with “documents.”

Hamilton has had a troubled start to life at Ferrari since his blockbuster move from Mercedes last winter, failing to score a podium across his first 13 appearances for his new team.

Charles Leclerc not ‘left out’ by Ferrari despite Lewis Hamilton ‘documents’ reveal

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

The seven-time World Champion has been consistently bettered by team-mate Leclerc, who collected his fifth top-three finish of F1 2025 at last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix.

Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com at Spa, Hamilton revealed that he is “going the extra mile” in an effort to make a success of his Ferrari career.

The 40-year-old explained that he held a series of meetings with senior Ferrari figures during the three-week gap between the British and Belgian grands prix in an attempt to get to the bottom of his current woes.

Lewis Hamilton vs Charles Leclerc: Ferrari head-to-head scores for F1 2025

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

Hamilton went on to reveal that he also submitted two documents, proposing structural changes to the team as well as expressing his wishes for Ferrari’s F1 2026 car (codenamed Project 678).

He claimed that he also sent a document to the team after the first few races of the season.

Hamilton’s willingness to lead Ferrari’s revival led to fears that Leclerc, who is in his seventh full season at Ferrari having arrived at the team in 2019, could be frozen out as the seven-time World Champion takes centre stage.

Speaking to media in Thursday’s press conference ahead of this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, however, Leclerc insisted that he remains fully involved in establishing how Ferrari proceed.

Asked if he is “afraid of being left out” of Ferrari’s plans, Leclerc said: “Don’t worry, I’m of course involved.

“I’m not creating documents on my side, but I’m definitely having meetings whenever I’m back in Maranello with the team in order to know what is the next thing we want to tackle as a team.

“But this has always been [the case], I think. Every single driver has their way of feeding back the team from what they think is right.

“I have my way, which is a different way compared to Lewis, but that doesn’t mean I’m left out and I’m definitely involved in the process.”

More on Ferrari drivers Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc from PlanetF1.com

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Hamilton revealed that his motive behind taking a hands-on approach at Ferrari is his “refusal” to follow in the footsteps of Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel, established world champions who failed to add to their title tally at Maranello.

Hamilton told media including PlanetF1.com: “The reason for it is that I see a huge amount of potential within this team. The passion? Nothing comes close to that.

“It is a huge organisation and there’s a lot of moving parts and not all of them are firing on all the cylinders that need to be.

“That’s ultimately why the team’s not had the success that I think it deserves.

“So I feel that it’s my job to challenge absolutely every area, to challenge everybody in the team, particularly the guys that are at the top making the decisions.

“If you look at the team over the last 20 years, they’ve had amazing drivers.

“You’ve had Kimi [Raikkonen, 2007 World Champion], you’ve had Fernando, you’ve had Sebastian. All world champions.

“However, they didn’t win a World Champion[ship] with Ferrari.

“And I refuse for that to be the case with me, so I’m going the extra mile.

“I’ve obviously been very fortunate to have had experiences in two other great teams.

“And whilst things are for sure are going to be different, because there’s a different culture and everything, I think sometimes if you take the same path all the time, you get the same results, so I’m just challenging certain things.

“They’ve been incredibly responsive. We’ve been improving in so many areas, through marketing and everything we’re continuously delivering for sponsors, the way the engineers continue to work.

“There’s lots of work and improvements to be made, but very responsive and I guess ultimately just trying to really, really create allies within the organisation and and get them gee’d up, get them pushing.

“I’m here to win. And I don’t have as much time as this one here [Andrea Kimi Antonelli], so it’s crunch time.

“I truly believe in the potential of this team. I really, really believe that they can win multiple World Championships moving forward.

“They already have an amazing legacy, but during my time that’s my sole goal.”