Singapore turned the heat up, and the paddock’s still simmering.
Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso — 18 years into a rivalry that’s now part sport, part theatre — kept the show rolling after the flag. Hamilton, nursing a Ferrari with fading brakes and a handful of track‑limits strikes, spent the closing laps keeping Alonso stuck behind for P8. Alonso’s radio boiled over. “I cannot f***ing believe it,” he repeated, incredulous at Hamilton’s off‑track excursions.
Cue Hamilton’s reply — not over the airwaves but on Instagram. A cheeky clip of Victor Meldrew’s “I don’t believe it” catchphrase, captioned “18 years of…” It’s the sort of tap on the shoulder only two greats can get away with. No plate-throwing, just a meme from a seven-time champion needling a two-time champion after another sweaty night in Marina Bay. It landed.
Behind the banter was a very real problem for Ferrari. Charles Leclerc was complaining about braking feel early; Hamilton caught the same gremlin late. Radio not heard on the world feed captured Hamilton telling Riccardo Adami, “I’ve lost my brakes,” as his engineer calmly walked him through survival mode. The price for keeping the Aston Martin at bay? A string of white-line kisses and, inevitably, a five‑second penalty.
Alonso wanted at least that, and asked another pointed question: is it safe to drive with no brakes? On the facts, Hamilton did what drivers do when systems fade — manage, adapt, limp the car home. The stewards judged the transgression where it happened (track limits) and punished accordingly. If anything, you can argue Hamilton copped the standard tariff rather than some leniency for grappling with a car that wasn’t helping him. As ever with the FIA handbook, the black-and-white reading rarely captures the grey art of getting a car to the line.
The bigger headache sits in Maranello. Eighth for Hamilton and sixth for Leclerc extended a lean spell that’s now five races without a podium. The SF‑25 isn’t a dog — far from it — but it looks temperamental, and the operation around it is showing cracks. Former Benetton boss Alessandro Benetton put it bluntly: the problem isn’t the machine, it’s leadership. It’s a stinging assessment because it cuts past ride heights and brake ducts and goes straight to decision-making, cohesion, and conviction. When strategy, reliability and execution wobble together, you don’t need a wind tunnel to see the pattern.
Elsewhere, the eternal Red Bull second-seat saga continues to cast a long shadow over the driver market. Max Verstappen’s chair is bolted to the floor; the other three in the Red Bull camp, less so. Isack Hadjar’s name is loud in the corridors — and with good reason — but the idea of throwing a rookie in alongside Verstappen has people who’ve seen that movie before reaching for the remote. Christijan Albers didn’t mince words: don’t “kill” Hadjar by rushing him. There’s logic there. The Verstappen benchmark is ruthless; even good drivers can look ordinary. A year’s grace for a young talent, and maybe another season for a known quantity, is the more humane path.
Back to the Hamilton–Alonso subplot, because it’s irresistible. These two have spanned eras, teams and rulebooks, collecting scars and silverware along the way. In Singapore, they added another chapter that felt very 2025: a late‑race cat‑and‑mouse, a glitchy car, a penalty, and a meme. No one needed to fire off a press release. The moment told its own story — two drivers who still won’t give an inch, and know exactly how to frame the narrative afterward.
Ferrari, though, can’t frame their way out of this form. Brakes don’t go soft in isolation; they tend to be the symptom of a package that’s right on the edge. When you’re skating that fine a line, tiny set‑up swings become cliff edges and drivers end up firefighting rather than racing. It’s fixable — the car flashes pace often enough — but the margin for error is clearly thin, and that puts pressure on everyone from the pit wall to the simulator.
And one last thought on the Alonso radio: he wasn’t wrong to push for a tougher call. He rarely is when it comes to gamesmanship. But he didn’t get it, and Hamilton’s five seconds stood. If the Aston had the legs to clear the Ferrari clean, it would’ve happened. It didn’t. That, more than the memes, is what will annoy Alonso the most.
The season rolls on, tempers cool, and the WhatsApp groups get quieter — until the next furnace of a Sunday lights up old rivalries again. Formula 1, in other words, doing what it does best.
