F1 news: Ferrari tipped to make Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc decision after Baku

That’s the verdict of former Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg.

The Prancing Horse courted controversy by imposing team orders early on in the Chinese Grand Prix earlier this month.

Ferrari told Charles Leclerc to give up third position to team-mate Sebastian Vettel after just 10 laps, even though the Monegasque had jumped the German from the start.

Vettel ran slower than Leclerc had been going in third for the rest of the race and the younger racer was eventually undercut by Max Verstappen and ended up in fifth.

Similarly, in the opening race in Australia, Leclerc was told to remain behind Vettel and did so.

He refused to obey team orders in Bahrain when he overtook Vettel after catching him but was agonisingly denied a deserved victory by late engine trouble, which relegated him to third.

But Rosberg believes Ferrari could well change their stance and stop treating Leclerc as a reserve driver given his phenomenal pace so far this season.

The former Sauber driver is already providing a stiff test to Vettel and was in line for pole in Azerbaijan before a Q2 crash at turn eight, which came after he had swapped to medium tyres.

And Rosberg, who found himself in a similarly-tough intra-team rivalry with Lewis Hamilton in his years at Mercedes, believes Ferrari could be forced to make alterations to their strategy sooner rather than later.

The Sky Sports pundit told his official YouTube channel: “Vettel didn’t have the pace that Leclerc had, he had no chance for pole. He had some issues with front tyres warming up. 

“Leclerc would have been on pole, 100 per-cent, easily. I’m certain of that. 

“Vettel, generally not a great season. He’s still struggling for pace. Leclerc was beating him. 

“Man that’s going to be interesting to see. At the moment Leclerc still has this No 2 contract within Ferrari but Binotto said in China that for now, Vettel is No 1 but that may change. 

“Let’s see how long that lasts. At the moment Leclerc has such incredible, awesome pace.

“So they might actually soon neutralise that within team Ferrari and just say, ‘Okay, whoever’s ahead, you can just go for it, you can win.’ 

“That would be awesome to see. The pressure is really on Vettel even though Leclerc had a setback today.”

source: express.co.uk