The Brazilian Grand Prix was, by all measures, a catastrophe for the Scuderia. A double DNF—both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were out of the race before the halfway point—was a sporting nightmare, wiping out precious Constructors’ Championship points in a tense battle for second place. Yet, the real, earth-shattering drama unfolded not on the tarmac of Interlagos, but shortly after, on a corporate stage in Italy. It was an event so unthinkable, so strategically devastating, that it ripped the sacred veil of unity right off the legendary Maranello outfit.
Ferrari’s own president, John Elkann, broke ranks and turned his guns on his star drivers. His words were a surgical strike delivered in public, exposing a fracture that runs right through the heart of Formula 1’s most storied team. “We have drivers for whom it is important they focus on driving and talk less,” Elkann declared.
These four blunt words, delivered without apology or ambiguity at a high-profile corporate event, were more than just a managerial critique; they were a public declaration of blame redistribution. They signaled that Ferrari’s leadership had decided where the problem lay, and—in a cruel twist of irony for a team that has wasted decades searching for stable leadership—they pointed directly at the two men they rely on most for future glory: a seven-time world champion and the sport’s generational talent. When a racing giant’s own president publicly questions the commitment of his highly-paid, fiercely loyal drivers, someone is about to pay the ultimate price, and the history books suggest it won’t be the man holding the microphone.
The São Paulo Nightmare and the Political Fallout
To understand the weight of Elkann’s words, one must rewind to the weekend that preceded them. São Paulo became the symbolic turning point where Ferrari’s campaign began to unravel politically. The sprint race offered scant comfort. The main event was a disaster from the first corner.
Charles Leclerc was an innocent bystander, eliminated at Turn 1 after an early collision played out directly in front of him, leaving him nowhere to go. His race was over before it began. Lewis Hamilton’s experience was one of a wounded fighter. He was hit from behind by a rival early on and subsequently clipped another while trying to recover. His Ferrari SF-25 sustained nearly forty points of downforce loss. The stewards, adding insult to injury, slapped him with a penalty for the recovery effort. Running dead last and with the car crippled, Ferrari made the pragmatic but humiliating decision to park the car to save engine mileage.
The result was a profound tactical setback. Ferrari tumbled in the Constructors’ Championship, now trailing key rivals and sitting behind another competitor. For a team that possesses perhaps the most celebrated driver pairing on the grid—a global icon and a future legend—this level of public, points-bleeding failure was already agonizing. But instead of rallying around his troops, Elkann chose the moment of maximum vulnerability to draw battle lines.
The Hammer Blow: ‘Focus on Driving and Talk Less’
John Elkann’s speech was delivered with cold, clinical precision. He began by offering praise, creating a clear line of separation between the organization’s successful components and its failing ones. First, the mechanics were lauded as “championship winners” for their leading position in the DHL pit stop rankings, a largely insignificant metric in the overall title fight, but one that rewards consistent performance. Then, the engineers received their nod, with Elkann claiming the car had improved, despite Ferrari’s campaign oscillating wildly between the second and fourth fastest team with a crushing zero race wins in sight.
Then came the pivot: “But if we look at the rest, it is not up to par.”
The “rest,” of course, meant the drivers. The man who had personally green-lit Lewis Hamilton’s blockbuster contract—the man overseeing the most high-stakes driver lineup in a decade—had just publicly told his two great champions to quiet down and drive. This message was broadcast for the entire paddock to digest: your public commentary, your honest appraisal of the car’s shortcomings, and your frustration are the problem. Not the technical development that has left Ferrari without a victory. Not the strategy. Not the consistency.
The Unforgivable Crime of Honesty
The paddock instantly exploded, recognizing this statement not just as criticism, but as an act of political sabotage. It was a declaration of war on the sacred rule of internal unity. And the most brutal truth is that John Elkann conveniently ignored the facts supporting his two star drivers.
Charles Leclerc has been, by nearly all objective measures, flawless. He has delivered a string of podium finishes and stellar qualifying performances with machinery that, demonstrably, cannot consistently win races. His recent multi-year contract extension, which potentially keeps him at Maranello for many seasons, was a massive, emotional vote of confidence in a team that has tragically wasted the prime years of his career while his contemporaries fight for world championships. What was his great crime? Expressing a natural frustration that Ferrari cannot give him a winning car, and voicing legitimate concerns about the upcoming regulation change. That is not disloyalty; that is the raw honesty of a champion demanding excellence.
Lewis Hamilton’s tenure in red has been, by his own humble admission, a nightmare. He remains without a Grand Prix podium, a staggering statistic for a driver of his caliber. But his harshest words have consistently been aimed at himself, not the team. After Brazil, he was criticizing his own qualifying struggles and the sheer bad luck he’d encountered, not laying blame at the feet of Maranello engineers.
The simple, damning reality is that the only true “crime” either driver committed was telling the truth about Ferrari’s persistent technical shortcomings and strategic fragility. In John Elkann’s Ferrari, apparently, that is still an unforgivable offense.
Vasseur’s Playbook Shredded
Immediately following Elkann’s remarks hitting the news wires, an “extraordinary” sequence of events unfolded. Both drivers took to social media, posting messages of defiant unity almost simultaneously. Hamilton declared, “I back my team, I back myself.” Leclerc countered with, “It’s uphill from now and it’s clear that only unity can help us.”
Whether this was a genuine, spontaneous show of solidarity or an act of forced damage control after being publicly eviscerated by their own president, the subtext was clear: the rift was real, and the drivers were desperately trying to close a wound their leader had just opened.
This episode achieved one thing above all else: it ruthlessly violated the very principle that Team Principal Fred Vasseur has spent years trying to build. Vasseur’s tenure has been defined by his fight to rebuild Ferrari’s fractured credibility, emphasizing teamwork, togetherness, and collective responsibility, trying to stamp out the decades-old culture of internal chaos and finger-pointing.
Elkann, by singling out the drivers while simultaneously defending the mechanics and engineers, threw Vasseur’s playbook out the window. This is the unmistakable shadow of the “old Ferrari” emerging from the darkness. It is the same toxic atmosphere that blamed Sebastian Vettel for the team’s failures in the mid-decade before he nearly won them a title shortly after. It is the dysfunction that begins not in the cockpit or the pit wall, but at the very top. Elkann praised unity while ruthlessly destroying it in the same devastating breath.
The Shadow Over the Future
As the championship heads into its final few races, a storm cloud hangs heavy over Maranello, threatening to unleash years of further chaos. The question is, where does Ferrari go from here, and can they heal this self-inflicted wound before the vital next season?
There are only three scenarios for the future. The first is that Elkann’s warning works: Hamilton and Leclerc fall into line, ceasing public expressions of frustration. Ferrari manages to salvage second in the championship, and the upcoming regulation change delivers the title-winning car they need. Redemption is achieved through fear.
The second, and more dangerous scenario, is that the fracture deepens. Leclerc starts to question whether his fierce, long-term loyalty has been profoundly misplaced. Hamilton recognizes the toxicity as a repeat of the political environment he left a former team to escape. The relationship between the drivers and the leadership becomes transactional and cold, and Ferrari’s dream of championship glory dies before the new regulations even begin.
The final, most hopeful scenario rests entirely on Fred Vasseur. He must step in, not just as a manager, but as a political shield. He must remind the president that championship teams protect their drivers publicly and challenge them privately. He must drive home the truth that unity means everyone, including the president, takes collective responsibility. If Ferrari genuinely wants to end their long title drought, they must stop repeating the same mistakes that have cost them everything.
John Elkann was right about one thing: Ferrari must be united to win. But he was catastrophically wrong about the remedy: unity doesn’t start with silencing your drivers; it starts with leadership that categorically refuses to scapegoat the people in the cockpit when the problems originate in the factory.
Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc are not the reason Ferrari can’t win races. They are the reason Ferrari is still fighting for a second-place finish instead of sinking lower in the standings. Until Maranello finally exorcizes the ghosts of its political past—the internal chaos, the finger-pointing, and the self-destructive tendencies—their biggest enemy will never be their rivals. It will be the self-devouring dynasty that refuses to die from within.
