The talks will examine two contrasting Spa rulings involving Ferrari, raising fresh concerns over consistency.
🇲🇨🇦🇺 Leclerc–Piastri
The stewards took no further action against Leclerc, arguing that Piastri had no realistic opportunity to complete the overtake and that Leclerc had not deliberately forced him towards the edge of the circuit.
Their decision stated: “There was no possibility of Car 81 completing an overtake from that position.” The stewards also concluded that Leclerc “did not deliberately crowd Car 81 off the edge of the track.”
However, the International Sporting Code requires a driver returning towards the racing line after defending off-line to leave at least one car’s width to the edge of the track. The fact that contact occurred suggests that this space was not available.
More importantly, the stewards appear to have applied guidance concerning a car’s position at the apex to an incident that developed on a straight and under braking. The central issue is therefore not necessarily the absence of a penalty, but the reasoning used to justify it.
🇬🇧🇬🇧 Hamilton–Russell
Hamilton was judged wholly responsible for the collision, despite taking corrective action when his Ferrari lost front-end grip in the turbulent air behind Max Verstappen.
The stewards acknowledged that Hamilton experienced understeer and attempted to avoid Russell, but still concluded that he had failed to maintain sufficient separation. Their own summary added that the collision resulted from “a loss of front-end grip rather than from an aggressive or deliberate manoeuvre.”
Russell remained within the available racing room, but also left Hamilton the minimum possible space and did not move further to the left. PlanetF1’s analysis places the balance of responsibility at roughly 60–40 against Hamilton — comparable to the Leclerc incident, where no penalty was issued.
That makes the finding that Hamilton was “wholly at fault” difficult to reconcile with the stewards’ own description of an unintended loss of grip.
The wider issue
Both incidents exposed a gap between how Formula 1’s rules are written and how they are interpreted in practice.
The drivers will now discuss these examples directly with the FIA in Hungary, seeking greater clarity and consistency in the application of both the International Sporting Code and the Driving Standards Guidelines.
The meeting had already been scheduled before the Belgian Grand Prix. Following discussions at the 2025 Qatar Grand Prix, the drivers and the FIA agreed to hold such meetings more frequently. The decisions at Spa have simply made the next one considerably more urgent.
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