Lewis Hamilton says he and Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc have "squashed" their incident at the Mexico City Grand Prix after holding talks in Brazil. Hamilton, Leclerc and team principal Frederic Vasseur held talks on Thursday night to discuss the incident which saw Max Verstappen take advantage of the opening lap Ferrari squabble last Sunday to win the race. Hamilton has subsequently been critical of Leclerc in interviews and said that discussions were required to more clearly define their rules of combat to avoid costly repeats in future.
Hamilton will start at the back of the grid for Sunday's Sao Paulo Grand Prix due to a power unit change and spoke to the media for the first time on Saturday since his talks with Leclerc. "Fred hasn't cleared the air in a sense. Me and Charles sat and spoke and we squashed it, and we're moving on," he told Sky Sports F1.
"We still have a huge amount of respect for each other and I'm glad we had a chat and now we move on. "We've been getting along just fine as normal. Sometimes in those scenarios it takes having a conversation and there's been no demands from either side, it's both just giving our points and areas we can do better and support each other.
I'm hoping to have better races moving forwards." Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player Leclerc, who starts 14th after a 10-grid place penalty for a new internal combustion engine, had a similar opinion to Hamilton. "Obviously, there's been a lot of things, probably too much things in the last week," he said. I think everything is settled, and I'm looking forward for the rest of the weekend now." The Mexico incident comes two months after Leclerc admitted he was at fault for his opening lap battle with Hamilton in Monza, where the latter was forced wide into the gravel and lost several positions.
Vasseur says he reminded Hamilton and Leclerc that the team comes first and the drivers must "keep that in mind". "The guidelines are still the same. They accumulated perhaps a bit of frustration because they are starting each weekend side by side, and you have a kind of accumulation of fact," he said.
"But at the end of the day, the guideline is always the same - it's that they need to respect each other. "They are two competitors with the fighting spirit for sure, but they need to have a respect for the other one. "But mainly and firstly, they need to respect the brand, the team, the people working at home, the people working at the on track.
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