Ferrari boss John Elkann’s decision to throw his drivers under the bus on Monday was a microcosm of everything that has dogged the company’s Formula 1 team during its 17-year drought.
Elkann’s pointed criticism of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc came in the wake of a double DNF at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix on Sunday, the same day Ferrari ended a 53-year wait for the sports car title by winning the World Endurance Championship, the series’ famed 24 Hours of Le Mans. It was a stark contrast: sports car glory as the Formula 1 team heads towards its third winless season of the 2020s.
“Brazil was a huge disappointment,” Elkann said. “If we look at the Formula 1 championship, we can say that on the one hand, we have our mechanics, who actually win the championship thanks to their performance and everything they did in the pit stops.
“If we look at our engineers, there is no doubt that the car has improved. If we look at the rest, it is not up to par. We definitely have drivers for whom it is important to focus on driving and talk less, because we still have important races ahead of us and it is not impossible to get second place (in the Constructors’ Championship).”
He later added: “When Ferrari is a team, we win… Winning as a constructor and as a driver (in the WEC) is beautiful proof that when Ferrari is united, when everyone is together, you can achieve great things.”
A Ferrari spokesperson told ESPN that the comments were meant to be “constructive” and the president’s way of motivating everyone. For anyone outside the team bubble, this is a somewhat charitable interpretation of what Elkann said publicly.
It was a statement that reeked of insecurity or arrogance (or a terrible combination of both) from a man who leads a company that has not won the Formula 1 Drivers’ Championship since 2007 or the Constructors’ Championship since 2008. His words revealed the same misguided interference from the top that has plagued the company before and after the glory days of Michael Schumacher.
It’s you, you’re the problem, it’s you
It was interesting that shortly after the media reported Elkann’s comments, both drivers posted them on social media. Leclerc stressed the need for “unity” at Ferrari if it wants to progress and win in the future. Meanwhile, Hamilton emerged from a difficult weekend in Brazil by saying: “I support my team, I support myself.”
Elkann’s statements raised more questions. Should either driver vent about the car in the future, will Elkann openly challenge and destroy attempts at unity behind the scenes? Is the team’s current situation acceptable for Ferrari? More broadly, does Elkann actually understand the differences between building a successful Formula 1 program and a WEC team?
There is little room for interpretation in the statement other than Elkann telling his drivers that their complaints about the team’s inability to compete were invalid. Ferrari has long been known as a place where uncompetitive seasons lead to finger-pointing, and it points its finger in one direction and one direction only: “If we look at the rest” it doesn’t leave much once you rule out the engineers and mechanics. It may also have been a sharp criticism of team boss Frédéric Vasseur, even though Elkann had awarded the Frenchman a new contract earlier this year.
His reference to pit stop-winning mechanics is likely a reference to the DHL award given to the fastest crew, and Ferrari has established itself as one of the best teams on the grid. Fast pit stops have become a crucial component of success in modern Formula 1, but talking about it that way during a winless season is like showing off to your neighbors about a new big-screen TV when your house has no roof.
Then there was a sign of progress: “There’s no doubt the car has improved.” Regarding the Ferrari president, there is a lot of doubt. This line was perhaps the most surprising of the whole thing.
While Red Bull and Mercedes both managed to take multiple wins in a season dominated by McLaren, Ferrari did not. Red Bull made clear progress at the Italian Grand Prix with an upgrade that helped Max Verstappen return to title contention. Ferrari has not made a single move like this, or anything close to it, in 2025. It has fluctuated on the track. The team struggled to deal with technical issues such as the car’s height, something that Hamilton in particular seemed to struggle with.
Hamilton’s sprint start, victory in China, Leclerc’s seven podium finishes and two pole positions are all the team has to show for its efforts this season. It’s fair to wonder what this car would have achieved had it not been in the hands of two of the network’s brightest talents.
Both drivers were clearly upset about Ferrari’s performance in 2025. The perception in the Italian media is that Leclerc has dipped his toe into more critical waters than ever before. Given that the Italian press often works alongside Ferrari, this view is not of little importance – and suggests that frustration has been simmering beneath the surface.
It would be easy to justify Leclerc’s dismay: last year, Ferrari were one shot away from beating McLaren in the Constructors’ Championship, and went into this season rightly expecting that level of competitiveness to continue. Given that the two teams entered the final season on equal footing, McLaren’s dominant season must be embarrassing for everyone in Maranello.
“You come from a year like last year, when you were fighting for the constructors’ world championship, and then you come here with high expectations but you haven’t lived up to those expectations from the start and you don’t even see progress. It’s not easy,” Leclerc said before last month’s Singapore Grand Prix.
Such comments have fueled rumors in the past few months that Leclerc and his agent Nicolas Todt are considering life after Ferrari if the team is not able to compete under the new rules in 2026. Given his talent, Leclerc would be foolish not to explore contingency plans. While Hamilton took his sprint win in China, Ferrari’s best results came from Leclerc – his seven podium finishes might have been eight had he not been collected in Oscar Piastri’s collision with Kimi Antonelli on Sunday. Leclerc’s longevity with the team and his unquestioning loyalty to Ferrari were supposed to give him a degree of flexibility as to when he could or could not criticize the team.
Perhaps nothing could indicate how dramatically Ferrari has failed more than if it were academy graduate Leclerc – the so-called “Estimated(“Estimated”) by the Italian media – he would have left the team to win a championship elsewhere. Ferrari’s focus should be on providing him with a car capable of doing so rather than asking him to stop asking for one.
Asking drivers to brake is nothing new. Alain Prost was literally fired on the spot in 1991 because he compared his uncompetitive Ferrari to a truck. This code of silence has reared its head recently as well. Parallels can be drawn between Elkann’s latest statement and how Sebastian Vettel was reprimanded by then team boss Maurizio Arrivabene in 2016 for what was seen as overstepping the mark and comments deemed too critical during a winless season.
Beyond Leclerc is Hamilton. Clearly he and Ferrari didn’t click in the way either side had hoped. There can be no doubt about Hamilton’s sincerity when he talks about his love for the Italian marque; He regularly mentions that he still sometimes feels aroused when he looks at himself in the mirror in red clothing emblazoned with the wild horse logo. Vettel used to feel the same, and it was his desperate desire to say he won the world championship with Ferrari that led him to push for changes behind the scenes. Hamilton has already tried this. Earlier this year, he talked about writing extensive notes to the team on where he felt things were lacking, effectively auditing the race process and areas that could be improved.
Hamilton’s point is not insignificant. Regardless of whether you agree that he is the greatest driver to ever grace the sport, he is a Grand Prix winner and shares the record for most titles with Schumacher. Since his debut in 2007, Hamilton has seen it all: great seasons, good seasons, bad seasons, teams that lost their way under the new regulations, the final days of the Ron Dennis McLaren era and how Mercedes built the dynasty that dominated the 2000s. You would be hard pressed to find better driver commentary on how to fix and manage a Formula 1 team.
However, sources with good knowledge of Ferrari’s inner workings indicated that Hamilton’s remarks received a mixed reaction – while his remarks were welcomed in some quarters, others resented his input. Dismissing the comments of one of the sport’s greatest drivers should say everything you need to know about the deep mentalities at the heart of the Ferrari factory.
This does not completely exempt drivers. Hamilton, in particular, has performed well below the expectations – his own as well as everyone else’s – that accompanied his move at the start of the year. Last weekend, he likened his current struggles to get anything out of the car to a “living nightmare”, and during the Hungarian Grand Prix, he suggested he was “useless” and that Ferrari should consider changing drivers.
It’s not as if he’s underperformed in a car or team that looks poised to claim the world championship. The problems extend beyond him.
Finally, there was the clear reference Elkann made to the WEC. While undoubtedly an impressive achievement, there have to be caveats here when compared to a Formula 1 team. The WEC’s supercar formula was built on luring the likes of Ferrari back to the table, and the series has a controversial ‘balance of performance’ system designed to help newcomers like Ferrari win, as they already have. A cynic might point out that what Elkann was actually saying is that the conditions Ferrari need to win are not just unity but a playing field tilted in their favour, as is currently the case in the World Endurance Championship.
No matter how legendary the dream team of Schumacher-Jan Todt-Rory Byrne-Ross Brawn, Ferrari’s dominant run in the early 2000s came at a time when the Formula 1 rulebook greatly favored the red team: among other things, Ferrari thrived with unlimited testing at the Fiorano racetrack and what was essentially an exclusive tire supply from Bridgestone while all its main rivals shared Michelin.
In the years since, Formula 1 has reduced private testing, turned to a single tire supplier in Pirelli and, significantly, adopted a cost cap that holds all teams to the same financial constraints. Ferrari has always looked like the Dallas Cowboys of Formula 1, a team that often boasts of being the richest in the sport, yet remains unable to beat better-performing competitors to Super Bowl glory.
This comparison should be of greater concern to Elkann going forward: why Ferrari, like the Cowboys, for all the aura, all the prestige, all the undisputed talent in multiple areas of the operation, seems fundamentally incapable of doing what each of its main rivals – Red Bull, Mercedes, Red Bull again and now McLaren – have done since 2008, which is build a title-winning operation that runs over several years.
