Ferrari chairman John Elkann’s determination to throw his drivers below the bus on Monday was a microcosm of all the things that has haunted the corporate’s storied Components 1 staff throughout its 17-year title drought.
Elkann’s exceptional criticism of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc adopted their double DNF on the São Paulo Grand Prix on Sunday, the identical day Ferrari ended a 53-year watch for a sports activities automotive title by successful the World Endurance Championship, the collection well-known for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It served as a stark distinction: sports activities automotive glory because the F1 staff hurtles towards its third winless season of the 2020s.
“Brazil was an enormous disappointment,” Elkann stated. “If we have a look at the Components 1 championship, we are able to say that on one hand, now we have our mechanics, who really are successful the championship with their efficiency and all the things they’ve performed on the pit stops.
“If we have a look at our engineers, there isn’t any doubt that the automotive has improved. If we have a look at the remaining, it is less than par. We actually have drivers, for whom it is vital that they deal with driving and discuss much less, as a result of we nonetheless have vital races forward of us and it isn’t unimaginable to get second place [in the constructors’ championship].”
He later added: “When Ferrari is a staff, we win … To win each as a constructor and as drivers [in WEC] is a stupendous demonstration that when Ferrari is united, when everyone seems to be collectively, you’ll be able to obtain nice issues.”
A Ferrari spokesperson instructed ESPN the feedback have been meant to be “constructive” and the chairman’s manner of spurring everybody on. To anybody exterior the staff bubble, that is a reasonably charitable interpretation of what Elkann stated publicly.
It was an announcement that smacked of both insecurity or conceitedness (or a horrible mixture of each) from a person main an organization that has not received an F1 drivers’ championship since 2007 or a constructors’ championship since 2008. His phrases revealed the identical misguided interference from above that plagued the outfit each earlier than and after the glory days of Michael Schumacher.
It is you, you are the issue, it is you
It was telling that not lengthy after Elkann’s feedback have been reported by the media, each drivers posted to social media. Leclerc harassed the necessity for “unity” at Ferrari whether it is to step up and win in future. Hamilton, in the meantime, signed off from a troublesome weekend in Brazil with, “I again my staff, I again myself.”
Elkann’s statements have raised additional questions. Ought to both driver vent in regards to the automotive in future, are they freely defying Elkann and destroying makes an attempt at unity behind the scenes? Is the staff’s present state of affairs acceptable for Ferrari? And, extra broadly talking, does Elkann really perceive the variations in constructing a profitable Components 1 program and a WEC outfit?
There’s little room for interpretation within the assertion past Elkann telling his drivers that their complaints in regards to the staff’s uncompetitiveness are invalid. Ferrari has lengthy been referred to as a spot the place uncompetitive seasons result in finger pointing, and his finger is pointed in a single course and one course solely: “If we have a look at the remaining” doesn’t go away so much left over when you exclude engineers and mechanics. Maybe it was additionally a pointed dig at staff boss Frédéric Vasseur, though Elkann handed the Frenchman a brand new contract earlier this yr.
His reference to the mechanics successful pit stops is probably going a nod to the DHL award given to the quickest crew, and Ferrari’s staff has established itself as among the finest on the grid. The lightning-fast stops have turn into a vital ingredient to success in trendy F1, however speaking it up in such a manner throughout a winless season is like bragging to your neighbors a couple of new big-screen TV when your own home would not have a roof.
Then there was the reference to progress, “little question the automotive has improved.” With respect to Ferrari’s chairman, there’s loads of doubt. That line was most likely probably the most eyebrow elevating of the entire thing.
Whereas Crimson Bull and Mercedes each have managed a number of victories in a season in any other case dominated by McLaren, Ferrari has not. Crimson Bull made clear progress on the Italian Grand Prix with the improve that helped Max Verstappen propel himself again into title rivalry. Ferrari has not made a single step like that, or something near it, in 2025. It is kind has fluctuated observe to trace. The staff has struggled to get a deal with on technical issues just like the experience top of the automotive, one thing that Hamilton particularly has appeared to wrestle with.
Hamilton’s dash pole and victory in China and Leclerc’s seven podium finishes and two pole positions are all of the staff has to point out for its efforts this season. It is truthful to surprise what this automotive would have achieved if it was not within the arms of two of the grid’s brightest abilities.
Each drivers have been clearly agitated about Ferrari’s efficiency in 2025. The Italian media’s notion is that Leclerc has dipped his toe into important waters greater than ever earlier than. Given the very fact the Italian press typically operates in tandem with Ferrari, that viewpoint just isn’t insignificant, and suggests frustration has been festering below the floor.
Leclerc’s displeasure can be straightforward to justify: Final yr, Ferrari was one overtake away from beating McLaren to the constructors’ championship, and got here into this season rightfully anticipating that degree of competitiveness to proceed. Contemplating the 2 groups went into final offseason on equal footing, McLaren’s dominant yr must be a humiliation to everybody in Maranello.
“Coming from a yr like final yr, once you have been preventing for the world constructors’ championship, and then you definitely come right here with excessive expectations however falls wanting them from the start, and you do not even see development, it isn’t straightforward,” Leclerc stated forward of the Singapore Grand Prix final month.
Feedback like that fueled the rumors of the previous few months, that Leclerc and agent Nicolas Todt are contemplating life after Ferrari if the staff just isn’t aggressive below the brand new guidelines in 2026. Given his expertise, Leclerc can be silly to not discover contingency plans. Whereas Hamilton claimed the dash win in China, Ferrari’s finest outcomes in any other case have come from Leclerc — his seven podiums most likely would have been eight had he not been collected in Oscar Piastri’s collision with Kimi Antonelli on Sunday. Leclerc’s longevity with the staff and his unquestionable loyalty to Ferrari ought to have earned him a level of flexibility on when he can and can’t criticize the staff.
Maybe nothing might signify simply how dramatically Ferrari has failed than if academy graduate Leclerc — dubbed “Il Predestinato” (“The Predestined One”) by the Italian media — have been to depart the staff to win a championship elsewhere. Ferrari’s focus must be on offering him a automotive able to doing that slightly than telling him to cease asking for one.
Drivers being instructed to reign it in is nothing new. Alain Prost was successfully sacked on the spot in 1991 for evaluating his uncompetitive Ferrari to a truck. That code of silence has reared its head in more moderen instances, too. Parallels between Elkann’s newest assertion will be drawn to how Sebastian Vettel was dressed down by then-team boss Maurizio Arrivabene in 2016 for what was perceived to be an overstepping of the mark and feedback deemed too important throughout a winless season.
Past Leclerc is Hamilton. Clearly he and Ferrari haven’t clicked in the best way both aspect hoped. There will be no doubting Hamilton’s sincerity when he talks about his love for the Italian marque; he frequently mentions that he nonetheless often feels giddy pleasure himself within the mirror in pink overalls adorned with the Prancing Horse brand. Vettel used to really feel equally, and it was his desperation to say he received a world championship with Ferrari that triggered him to push for adjustments behind the scenes. Hamilton has already tried this. Earlier this yr he spoke about writing intensive notes for the staff about the place he felt they have been falling brief, successfully his audit of the race operation and the areas it might enhance.
Hamilton’s viewpoint just isn’t insignificant. No matter whether or not you agree he’s the game’s biggest ever driver, he’s its winningest by way of grands prix and shares the document for many titles with Schumacher. Since his debut in 2007, Hamilton has seen all of it: nice seasons, good seasons, dangerous seasons, groups that misplaced their manner below new laws, the latter days of the Ron Dennis-McLaren period and the way Mercedes constructed the dynasty that dominated the 2010s. You’ll be laborious pressed to search out higher driver suggestions on tips on how to repair and run a Components 1 staff.
But sources with good data of the interior workings of Ferrari have advised Hamilton’s notes acquired a combined response — whereas welcomed in some quarters, others resented his enter. Dismissing the suggestions of one of many sport’s biggest drivers ought to say all it’s good to know in regards to the mindsets deep within the coronary heart of the Ferrari manufacturing unit.
That is to not excuse the drivers utterly. Hamilton, particularly, has carried out effectively under the expectations — his personal in addition to everybody else’s — that accompanied his transfer firstly of the yr. Final weekend, he likened his present struggles to get something out of the automotive to a “residing nightmare,” and through a chastening Hungarian Grand Prix, he advised he was “ineffective” and that Ferrari ought to contemplate altering drivers.
It is not like he is underperforming in a automotive or a staff that appears prepared to assert a world championship, although. The issues lengthen far past him.
Lastly, there was the pointed reference Elkann made to WEC. Whereas little question a formidable achievement, there must be caveats right here when evaluating to the Components 1 staff. WEC’s hypercar method was predicated on luring the likes of Ferrari again to the desk, and the collection has a controversial “stability of efficiency” system designed to assist new entrants like Ferrari win, as they’ve performed. A cynic would possibly recommend that what Elkann was really saying was that the circumstances Ferrari must win will not be merely unity, however a taking part in discipline skewed of their favor, as is at present the case in WEC.
Regardless of how legendary the Schumacher-Jean Todt-Rory Byrne-Ross Brawn dream staff was, Ferrari’s dominant run of the early 2000s got here at a time the F1 rule e book largely favored the pink staff: amongst different issues, Ferrari thrived with limitless testing at its Fiorano race observe and what was basically an unique tire provide from Bridgestone whereas its chief rivals all shared Michelins.
Within the years since, F1 has slashed personal testing, gone to a single tire provider in Pirelli and, considerably, adopted a price cap that binds all groups by the identical monetary restraints. Ferrari has at all times appeared like F1’s Dallas Cowboys, the staff that usually boasts about being the richest in sports activities, but one that continues to be incapable of beating better-run rivals to Tremendous Bowl glory.
That comparability must be an even bigger concern to Elkann going ahead: why Ferrari, just like the Cowboys, for all the aura, all the status, and all the unquestionable expertise throughout a number of areas of the operation, appears essentially unable to do what every of its major rivals — Crimson Bull, Mercedes, Crimson Bull once more and now McLaren — have performed since 2008, which is to construct a title-winning operation that’s sustained over a number of years.