The 2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix will be remembered not for a victory or podium celebrations, but for a moment that laid bare all the deep-seated fractures within the Scuderia Ferrari team. What seemed like a routine instruction spiraled into an emotional and strategic shockwave, rattling the very foundations of Maranello. A team order, a deafening silence over the radio, and a seemingly minor decision created a seismic event.

Baku, a treacherous street circuit where the walls seem to close in, became the stage for this high-stakes drama. Ferrari was far from the front-running positions, but even in that context, the team tried to salvage what it could with a pre-determined tactical decision: Charles Leclerc would have his position returned. Lewis Hamilton, who had overtaken his teammate earlier under a specific condition—if he couldn’t advance, he had to give the place back at the end of the race—received an unmistakable directive: “Let Charles through. He’s a second and a half behind you and it’s the last lap.”

The tone, almost pleading, was already a warning sign. There was no answer. An unnatural silence, a silence that in Formula 1 weighs a ton. Ferrari insisted, “Let him pass.” Simultaneously, Charles Leclerc received the same information: Lewis would let him pass at the finish line if he didn’t overtake any other competitor. Everything was arranged for a simple, drama-free position swap… in theory.

But Hamilton, approaching the final stretch, did not act like an obedient driver. He lifted his foot off the accelerator, yes, but the action was so calculated and minimal that the gesture ended up being symbolic, not effective. Slowing from 340 km/h to just 184 km/h—a move as subtle as it was obvious. It was impossible for Leclerc to close the gap. Hamilton crossed the finish line just 464 thousandths of a second ahead of his teammate, a gap just wide enough to say he slowed, but not enough to fulfill the order.

Leclerc’s reaction over the radio was devastating. He didn’t raise his voice, he didn’t scream, but the calmness in his tone masked a deep-seated anger, a disappointment that went far beyond eighth place. “I don’t care,” he said. “Let him enjoy this eighth place. Simply stupid. It’s not fair, but honestly, I don’t care.” This repeated “I don’t care” was not genuine indifference; it was resignation. It was the voice of a driver tired of seeing the rules of the game disrespected, a driver who feels that in a team that should treat its drivers equally, the balance always tilts according to the internal narrative of the moment—in this case, in favor of a newly arrived star.

Because behind this controversy, the context is much larger. We are not talking about a tactical misunderstanding; we are witnessing a duel of egos, a clash of leadership that Ferrari has failed to manage. Leclerc, raised in the “Italian house,” has been the banner of the Scuderia for years. Hamilton, a seven-time world champion, arrives with the aura of a legend but also with the expectation of being number one. And when two worlds collide, the small details become symbolic. A disobeyed order is not just a failed order; it’s a statement, a direct message to the pit wall, the teammate, the fans, the media. Hamilton wanted to win the power play without saying a word. He did, but at the expense of something Ferrari values deeply: unity.

Trust in Formula 1 between drivers and the team doesn’t break suddenly; it erodes. And every thousandth of a second that Hamilton held that position was like another drop of water deepening a crack that has been forming since pre-season testing. Baku was not the origin of the problem; it was simply the place where it was exposed.

If the Baku incident left a visible wound in Ferrari’s structure, what lies beneath the surface is even more worrying. Because the real problem is not that Hamilton didn’t return the position. The real problem is that Ferrari no longer controls its drivers, and worse, it doesn’t seem to control the internal narrative of the team.

These situations do not happen by accident. This is not the first time we’ve seen signs of a fracture between the pit wall and the cockpit of the SF-25. Since the inaugural Grand Prix in Australia, the relationship between Lewis Hamilton and his race engineer, Riccardo Adami, has been anything but smooth. And in a sport where every millisecond is decided by a joint decision between driver and engineer, a lack of communication is not just a style problem; it’s a tactical time bomb.

In Monaco, the tension reached a visible peak during one of the key sessions of the weekend. Hamilton asked a direct question over the radio: “Are you upset with me or something?” There was no answer. That uncomfortable pause, in an environment where the exchange of information should be constant and precise, revealed something much deeper than a technical difference: distrust. And when a driver doesn’t trust the voice guiding him from the pit wall, he is alone. But it’s even more serious when the engineer doesn’t trust that his driver will execute instructions with discipline.

However, all of this is not exclusive to Hamilton’s side. At the other end of the garage, Charles Leclerc is not comfortable either. His post-Baku reaction is not the first time he has expressed frustration with the team’s organization. Since 2023, the Monegasque driver has dealt with questionable race decisions, poorly timed pit stops, and incoherent strategies. And although in 2024, under the direction of Frédéric Vasseur, the ship seemed to have been righted, 2025 is showing that the old cracks were never completely repaired; they were only concealed.

Hamilton has tried to adapt his driving style to the SF-25, even copying Leclerc’s braking trajectories and throttle inputs. But if there is no open and reliable line of communication with his engineer, all that learning becomes fragmented, as if the car isn’t really his. And if Ferrari fails to rebuild that internal confidence, if they don’t find a way for their drivers and engineers to speak the same language with the same objective, then no matter how many horsepower the SF-25 has, the real loss will not be on the stopwatch; it will be in the spirit of the team.

Beyond the personal tensions and radio silences, there is a technical truth that cannot be ignored: the car suffers from erratic behavior and long braking distances. In Baku, this translated into a constant loss of confidence for the drivers. Each corner entry became a gamble: would the front tires lock up? Would the rear respond in time? Leclerc felt it on every lap. Hamilton struggled to adapt his style, even imitating his teammate’s braking points, but it wasn’t enough. The car did not give back control. The SF-25 does not forgive the slightest error in tuning.

Furthermore, throughout the Azerbaijan weekend, Ferrari dealt with faults in the car’s hybrid system. This was admitted by Fred Vasseur after the race. These failures did not lead to retirement, but they did condition the use of the MGU-K—the component that allows for energy recovery and deployment during braking and acceleration. On a circuit like Baku, where the use of the hybrid system on the long straights is essential to defend or attack, that limitation represented a critical disadvantage.

It’s not just about power; it’s about trust. If the driver doesn’t know how much energy he can deploy, if he feels the car isn’t responding as it should, then he stops pushing to the limit. And when that happens, the race is lost before it even starts. Ferrari arrived in Azerbaijan hoping to take a step forward in its fight for the 2025 championship, but what transpired in Baku was the opposite. It was a painful demonstration that talent alone is not enough when the structure that must sustain it begins to fail from within.

The most alarming thing is not that Ferrari failed to achieve a podium or that their drivers finished out of the fight for the top positions. The truly disturbing part is the way this result occurred: tactical disobedience, broken communication, accumulated frustration, and a car that remains an unknown in urban conditions. Each of those elements separately could be a simple setback in a long season, but together, they form a pattern. And that pattern points to a truth that the Scuderia cannot continue to ignore.

Baku exposed three layers of the same problem. First, internal management between the drivers: if Hamilton and Leclerc fail to establish a functional respect beyond sportsmanship, the conflict will escalate. Second, fragility in the chain of command: a team that gives a clear order and does not see it fulfilled has a problem of authority. And third, the SF-25: a car that, despite having promising elements, is not responding in terms of aerodynamics, balance, or hybrid system integration.