How gripping Ferrari battle is keeping F1 2026 alive amid Mercedes dominance

Amid Mercedes’ early stranglehold at the top of Formula 1’s competitive order, a spectacular intra-team Ferrari battle is providing the early entertainment in 2026. 

We are finally getting to see the great Ferrari scrap everyone was hoping for last year when Lewis Hamilton completed his blockbuster move to pair up with Charles Leclerc. 

With Mercedes racking up another convincing one-two finish at the Chinese Grand Prix, the highlights from Shanghai largely consisted of some gripping wheel-to-wheel racing between the Ferrari drivers.

Following a tense battle that Leclerc came out on top of in the sprint race, things heated up on Sunday, as Hamilton and Leclerc put on a show of pulsating action throughout the grand prix. 

Hamilton briefly led the race with another rocket-like start, but eventually the Mercedes drivers made their way to the front to restore the status quo. A fight for victory never came to fruition due to the sizeable gap between Andrea Kimi Antonelli and George Russell, and so attention turned to the fight to claim the final spot on the podium. 

Hamilton and Leclerc did battle for most of the race, with seven-time world champion Hamilton ultimately getting the upper hand with a decisive move on lap 40. From there, Hamilton was able to increase the gap to over three seconds as he ended his long wait for a first grand prix podium as a Ferrari driver at the 26th attempt. 

Hamilton and Leclerc’s intense skirmish was hard but also clean and fair. Only on one occasion, as the pair went side-by-side through the sweeping Turn 2 on lap 25 did they make light contact, which Hamilton described as being “subtle” and “just a kiss”. 

The swashbuckling duel was a demonstration of pure entertainment as two great racing drivers went at it hammer and tongs. 

“That is actually quite a fun battle,” Leclerc exclaimed over team radio during the race. 

It was edge of your seat stuff and nail-biting-inducing watching at times. Even Russell was expecting the Ferraris to come together as he found himself stuck behind them in the early stages. 

“I was waiting for them to collide. It was some of the most aggressive racing I’ve seen for a while,” the Mercedes driver commented. 

The fierce scrap stoked memories of Hamilton’s famous duel with former Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg in Bahrain at the start of the 2014 regulation cycle. 

Perhaps that is why Hamilton, who seems to have rediscovered his mojo after a miserable 2025, had so much fun, calling the battle “the best racing I’ve ever experienced in F1”. 

"Hopefully it was an exciting race to watch for you guys because it was awesome in the car,” Hamilton said.

“It felt like go-karting - back and forth, back and forth - and you could really position your car in a nice way where there was a thin piece of paper between us sometimes, but we didn't exchange any paint.

"Great wheel-to-wheel battle, very fair and just what we want. I think that's down to great drivers and respect.”

Leclerc echoed Hamilton’s comments, telling Sky Sports F1: “I really enjoyed it, it’s not very often that I have a smile after a P4. 

“There’s one big negative after a race like this and this is the gap to Mercedes. Obviously we lost some time, so maybe the gap is a bit bigger than we thought. 

“We lost time when they [Mercedes] were gone. We decided that we would fight at least for the podium, so that didn’t optimise our race time but it didn’t change anything to our result.

“But to come back to the fight with Lewis, it was very fun. I really enjoyed it. I’m not sure the team enjoyed it as much as we did, but I did!”

The battle must have been hair-raising for Ferrari to watch unfold on the pit wall, but team principal Fred Vasseur insisted he never thought his drivers would collide. 

"I trust them,” Vasseur told Sky Sports F1. "For sure it's always tricky because it's difficult to stop them and I don't want to ask them to freeze the positions because I think it would have been unfair.

"They are professional, they did very well and it's good for the team, good for F1 and I prefer to stay like this."

Credit must go to Ferrari for allowing its drivers to race freely without the need for interference. 

Critics may well argue the fight was yet another demonstration of the heavy reliance on overtakes in F1 2026 being largely determined by battery levels and was more akin to “Mario Kart” than ‘real racing’. But wherever you stand on the new rules, the opening two rounds have provided the most on-track entertainment seen in F1 for some time. 

And with Mercedes currently unchallenged at the front, finishing some 25 seconds clear of Hamilton in China, Ferrari’s thrilling intra-team fight is keeping the season alive.