Lewis Hamilton insists he and Charles Leclerc have "squashed" the tension between them after a miserable weekend at Monza, but the seven-time world champion has not yet been given the "rules of engagement" he asked for.
Ferrari's home race was a disaster with Leclerc in the wall early after pushing Hamilton off track on lap one, sending him tumbling down the order. Hamilton fumed over the radio at his team-mate and vented his frustration at the team after the race, slamming the decision not to prioritise his title bid.
Hamilton's title hopes fade
Hamilton is now 76 points behind Kimi Antonelli after the Mercedes star's stunning comeback victory. Knowing that the title is now probably out of reach, he said he and Leclerc were swift to bury the hatchet after a meeting with boss Frederic Vasseur.
Speaking after the talks, Hamilton said: "I spoke to Fred on Monday, and we just had a clearing out discussion. Naturally, we can always have different opinions, but at the end of the day, we come together, and we find a way forward. The communication has been really great. We all sat down afterwards to squash it and move on, so nothing lingers."
Rules of engagement still missing
One thing Hamilton hasn't yet got, though, are the "rules of engagement" he asked for after the Monza race. He complained that, unlike other top teams, Ferrari don't have an agreement between drivers in terms of how they race one another on track. But with this weekend's trip to Madrid looming, they haven't had time to thrash out an agreement yet.
Hamilton said: "I'm sure at some stage we'll discuss how we can be better, but we've not had a lot of time to turn around. You can't change things in two days. It's not something we can change into this weekend. There's a huge amount of moving parts. There are a lot of people. There's a culture that's been here for a long, long time, and moving big pieces is not so easy."
Madring poses new challenge
Ferrari will hope it is not one more factor that could contribute to an incident on what threatens to be a crash-tastic debut in Formula One for this new circuit. The 'Madring' circuit has been purpose-built for this event and has taken over the Spanish Grand Prix from the iconic Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
But the track has already been dubbed the 'car killer'. Its first and only fully-fledged event so far, a Formula 3 test, was red flagged nineteen times for crashes. Even Carlos Sainz, from Madrid, who is an ambassador for this new event, conceded: "We're all expecting safety cars, red flags and yellow flags in qualifying."
Several other drivers have called it "dangerous", having tested the layout on their simulators. But while there may be crashes aplenty, expect overtakes on Sunday to be few and far between. That was the warning from Max Verstappen who said: "It's going to be very difficult. It's not an easy track and it also has a tendency to cause some big shunts. It reminds me a bit of Jeddah, with fast corners and the walls very close. But a lot of the braking zones are angled, so you can't go for an overtake. You're braking, but you're steering, which is the worst thing you can do for creating an overtake zone."
