Ferrari split over Hamilton team orders row
"That would have bitterly upset one or two drivers"
Ferrari’s handling of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc at Zandvoort continues to divide opinion, with former Ferrari engineer Luigi Mazzola defending the team while Timo Glock says the execution was simply not good enough.
Hamilton apologised on Monday for the tone of his radio and television criticism after the Dutch GP, where he complained about losing time behind Leclerc while Mercedes decisively moved Kimi Antonelli ahead of George Russell.
Mazzola, who worked at Ferrari from 1988 to 2009 and was closely involved in the Michael Schumacher era, told Sky Italia that Ferrari was right not to impose an obvious hierarchy.
"Ferrari did well not to issue team orders, because that would have bitterly upset one or two drivers," he said.
"But from my point of view, there was no reason for team orders, because I don’t actually see Lewis Hamilton in the title race."
"As long as he isn’t closer to the championship leader, a clear hierarchy between the two drivers would be wrong."
Hamilton is currently 59 points behind championship leader Antonelli - the same deficit as Russell.
Former F1 driver Glock sees it differently.
"There’s always a catch with Ferrari," he told Sky Deutschland.
"Now it was the implementation of the perfect strategy that they failed to pull off."
The former F1 driver believes Ferrari should already be thinking in championship terms.
"If you want to have a say in the World Championship, then you have to try to put Hamilton in a position where he loses as few points as possible to Antonelli or, in the best case, gains points."