Hamilton provides update on Leclerc feud without Vasseur: 'No demands from either side'

The row started on the opening lap in Mexico. Leclerc tried to pass Hamilton around the outside at Turn 4, both cars went off the track, and Max Verstappen took the win. Hamilton then questioned Leclerc's "do or die" approach, and when he got to Interlagos he doubled down on that criticism. Vasseur then sat down with both drivers on Thursday evening.

Hamilton spoke to Sky Sports F1 after qualifying on Saturday, his first media appearance since the talks. When he was asked whether his team principal had patched things up, he made it clear the credit belonged to the two drivers. "Fred [Vasseur] hasn't cleared the air in the sense of me and Charles [Leclerc] sat and spoke, and we squashed it and we're moving on," he said.

That is a very different tone from the start of the weekend. On Thursday, Hamilton said he would not be silenced over the Mexico incident. The "no demands" line also answers speculation that one of the drivers had asked for preferential treatment in the talks.

After Friday practice, Leclerc called the matter "fully settled". His latest comments, reported by The Race and RacingNews365, go a step further. Asked whether everything was now OK with Hamilton, he replied "yes of course". Then he added: "Of course there is tension, of course we want to finish ahead of each other and sometimes we are not going to do things right, and it's OK sometimes to disagree on the way you see things, but at the same time discussing about those helps a whole lot."

Leclerc also thinks the story was blown out of proportion. "From my perspective, I was very straightforward," he told media including RacingNews365. "It was good to speak. This is always needed after a moment like this. It took proportions that are way too big, but it has been around for way too long."

The truce faces its first test on Sunday, with both Ferraris starting well down the order. Leclerc qualified fourth but drops to 14th because of a 10-place penalty for a new engine. Hamilton qualified 11th and starts 20th after Ferrari changed a full set of components in his power unit.

Both drivers will be fighting their way through the field, so they could meet on track during the race. The Race argues that very little would be needed for the tensions to flare up again, which would test Ferrari's patience once more. For now, though, both drivers are saying the same thing: they have talked it through and moved on.