Ferrari's Hamilton-Leclerc rift and Red Bull's turnaround headline F1's final stretch before 2027

On Thursday evening in Brazil, Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc sat down with team principal Frederic Vasseur for the "serious talks" Hamilton had demanded after the previous Sunday in Mexico. Leclerc and Vasseur had flown back to Europe between races and returned to Sao Paulo for the meeting. The cause was a first-lap tangle between the two Ferrari drivers that threw away a potential one-two finish.

Vasseur said on Friday that the meeting went well and that the team was now turning the page. The guidelines, he said, have not changed: the drivers must respect each other, the brand and the people working at home and at the track, and Ferrari comes first. He conceded that the team had failed and had to react. Hamilton, after Mexico, had said Ferrari had "big problems".

Hamilton has been the more outspoken of the two. The seven-time champion contrasted how Leclerc raced him in Mexico City with how Leclerc yielded to Max Verstappen when they ran side by side into the first corner in Singapore. He said he had seen a similar pattern between Leclerc and his earlier team-mates Sebastian Vettel and Carlos Sainz. He said he does not regret speaking out, has not been asked to stay quiet, and will not be silenced. He also acknowledged that someone as outspoken as he is, pushing constantly for change, is not an easy addition to a team, and said he is working with Ferrari's head of aerodynamics to keep the strengths of this year's car while fixing smaller flaws. The stakes are real: if Ferrari keep their chassis advantage and bring their engine up to the level of Mercedes and Red Bull, they could contend for the title next year.

The weekend sits within a settled-but-shifting picture. Kimi Antonelli has already won the drivers' title, and Mercedes need three more points than Ferrari in Brazil to clinch the constructors' crown. Antonelli sees the remaining races as preparation for defending in 2027, while his beaten team-mate George Russell is trying to understand where his season went wrong. Mercedes won seven of the first eight races, but of the last 12 they have won six, Red Bull three, McLaren two and Ferrari one.

Red Bull's recovery is the season's sharpest reversal. Verstappen's win in Mexico was his third in four races and lifted him to second in the standings, something that looked impossible when the team was nearly a second off the pace early in the year. He called second place a big surprise, credited lessons learned about the power units, and said the team never gave up. Behind him the margins are tiny: Verstappen leads Hamilton by two points, Hamilton leads Russell by nine, and Russell leads Leclerc by five. Finishing fourth would spare a driver the mandatory trip to the FIA prize-giving in Shanghai, which is required of the top three and takes place a week after the season ends.

In the constructors' battle for third, Red Bull lead McLaren by 17 points, with roughly $10m at stake. McLaren, who briefly had the fastest car in the summer when Lando Norris won in Hungary and the Netherlands, have slipped back and bring upgrades to Brazil. Norris said Sunday pace has not been far off, though he does not expect to start winning at once, and he named drivability as a key weakness. McLaren had compromised 2026 to secure last year's championship, and they have since identified inherent problems: gear ratios that are too short, too much drag and a wheelbase smaller than ideal. All of these can be fixed for 2027.

There are three races after Brazil, in Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, but the two Gulf events are in doubt because of the war in the Middle East. MotoGP, owned by the same US group as F1, is in Qatar this weekend as a test run for the grand prix at month's end, and personnel there were issued instructions on how to behave in a missile strike. F1 has consulted governments and security experts and believes it has sought the right assurances. A decision deadline is approaching.