Juan Pablo Montoya believes it would be “very unfair” to question how Fred Vasseur wants to manage Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, but sees the main hurdle he faces at Ferrari.

Vasseur has once again come under fire for his management style in Maranello, after Hamilton and Leclerc tangling on track last time out ultimately handed the victory in the Mexico City Grand Prix to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. It means Ferrari are still without a win in 10 rounds.

Juan Pablo Montoya dubs Fred Vasseur the ‘deputy’ Ferrari team principal, unlike Toto Wolff

Without their tussle, Ferrari were looking at a potential one-two finish after Hamilton scored his first pole position for the Scuderia at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez and Leclerc ran P2 by the first corner. In the end, Hamilton finished the Mexico City GP in P2 and Leclerc in P4.

Ferrari boss Vasseur has held clear-the-air talks with Hamilton since the Mexico City GP, but there “isn’t a plan” for any changes yet. Hamilton noted ahead of this weekend’s Sao Paulo GP that Vasseur flying back to Italy and Leclerc going home for the birth of his first child meant they were unable to go into much detail about how the Scuderia should handle internal duels.

Hamilton and Leclerc’s incident once again sparked the debate about how Vasseur manages Ferrari, though, as it was not the first time that they have tussled this term. But Montoya feels it would be wrong to question Vasseur without seeing how he works behind closed doors, plus the fact that he is not the top dog in Maranello like his counterpart Toto Wolff is at Mercedes.

Montoya told AS: “The thing is, we don’t see what goes on in internal meetings. So, how can you judge Fred without knowing what he’s actually doing? From the outside, you’d say, or assume, that, yes, he needs to be tougher. But it would be very unfair to say that about Fred without knowing how he operates internally.

“You don’t know internally whether Fred is actually the one in charge at that moment, or whether someone else is handling it, someone higher up, or something like that, because remember that at Ferrari it doesn’t stop with Fred. At Ferrari, it goes much higher up.

“Because, for me, Fred is the principal, but you look at Fred as someone like Bradley [Lord] at Mercedes, who’s the deputy team principal. From the outside, you don’t see Fred as the sole decision-maker. I reckon that if Fred wanted to do something really big, he’d have to say, ‘Listen, I’ll call the people at Ferrari, I can do this.’ Whereas Toto doesn’t have to do that.”

Hamilton was able to salvage P2 in Mexico City thanks to his launch off the grid at the restart following Cadillac’s Valtteri Bottas crashing out. Leclerc, in contrast, locked his front-left tyre into Turn 1 at the restart on Lap 47/71, and had to then defend from McLaren’s Lando Norris.

Without that restart, Hamilton faced finishing behind Leclerc after his teammate refused to yield a position that he illegally gained and almost built enough of a lead over Verstappen to negate his 5s penalty. In the end, Leclerc’s slow pit stop allowed Verstappen to lead in Mexico.

Vasseur is now said to be considering changes in Maranello given how Leclerc and Hamilton dealt with their duel, though. It is believed that Vasseur is considering enforcing new rules of engagement at Ferrari, given that the Mexico City GP now joins the other noticeable incidents between their drivers during the Grands Prix in China, Barcelona and, above all, Italy this year.

But as Montoya notes, Vasseur cannot call the shots on his own in Maranello like Wolff does at Mercedes as the CEO and team principal of the Silver Arrows. Instead, Vasseur reports into Ferrari chairman John Elkann and CEO Benedetto Vigna, who actually hold the absolute power.

Thus, while Wolff used to rule over Hamilton with total control when he battled Nico Rosberg, Bottas and George Russell within the Mercedes garage, Vasseur cannot control Hamilton and Leclerc the same way at Ferrari.