Max Verstappen has weighed in on the tension between Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc at Ferrari.

Hamilton and Leclerc both went off track as they fought for the lead at the start of the Mexico City GP, opening the door for Verstappen.

When Leclerc served his five-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, Verstappen took the lead. He went on to take victory, and the Ferrari drivers finished second and fourth.

After the race, Hamilton accused Leclerc of putting his own interests above those of the team. Fred Vasseur held talks with the pair in Sao Paulo in the hope of avoiding a repeat.

Max Verstappen: Ferrari tension shows you can’t have two number one drivers

Speaking to Viaplay in Brazil, Verstappen said Ferrari’s mistake was signing two ‘number-one’ calibre drivers.

The four-time world champion has been the undisputed leader at Red Bull for most of his 11 seasons with the team, partly because of his ability and partly because the team is built around him.

“I’ve said it before, and a lot of people often don’t agree, but if I were a team principal, I’d never get two number one drivers, because then you get things like this,” he explained.

“One won’t yield for the other, because they both think they could win, and that’s how I am too.

“If I were a team principal, I’d change this. If you had a clear number one and two, they would have gone through the first corner as P1 and P2 and finished like that, or P1 and P3 – that’s fine too because as a team you’re still scoring great points.”

Ferrari are on course to finish second in the constructors’ standings, and their advantage over Red Bull and McLaren may be a testament to the strength of their line-up. Oscar Piastri is an accomplished driver, but he has only scored two podiums this season, while Isack Hadjar has rarely been on Verstappen’s level in a race setting.

However, the two Ferrari drivers have now clashed at the start twice in seven races, with Hamilton losing six positions when he tried to pass Leclerc at Monza and ended up in the gravel. This comes amid an intense battle for supremacy in the championship.

That perhaps shows the perils of having two drivers who are so closely matched. Before Brazil, Leclerc led the race head-to-head 10-9 and the race-day battle 8-7, the narrowest such margins on the grid.

Hamilton’s predecessor, Carlos Sainz, was a worthy challenger to Leclerc rather than a number two, but this is arguably the biggest managerial headache Vasseur has faced since he took over at Ferrari.