Ferrari president John Elkann has certainly done his part to keep the media talking in the break between Brazil and Las Vegas with the suggestions his drivers Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton should "talk less" - among other direct or indirect team criticisms.
What can we ascertain from this? Is it a good or bad move to publicly criticise parts of the team and the drivers for their performances like this? What could Ferrari be hoping to gain from it?
It seemed to get a pretty quick reaction from the drivers too. Social media posts from them both within an hour of each other on Monday night felt a little pointed, Hamilton saying "I back my team, I back myself" and Leclerc even echoing Elkann's language as he wrote "it's uphill from now and it's clear only unity can help us".
Politics at Maranello is always fascinating. Our writers have their say on the comments and the situation.
Seen this movie before...
Glenn Freeman
Ferrari's upper management making misguided comments that effectively amount to telling the race team or drivers how to do their jobs is a return to the bad old days of how business is handled in Maranello.
We've seen this movie plenty of times before, and it never ends well.
There is no team more politically-charged than Ferrari, nor is there one that operates under as much pressure. And that's before the guys signing the cheques start throwing their weight around verbally.
It's regularly said that Ferrari's best era - the Michael Schumacher years - came when the Jean Todt/Ross Brawn-led race team was able to create a shield around itself to protect against troublesome interference from above. Despite having seen how well that template worked, modern-day Ferrari seems incapable of trying to recreate that.
As for the reference to Ferrari's success in the World Endurance Championship, maybe if F1 had its own controversial Balance of Performance that seems to upset so many teams in WEC, Ferrari would win more in F1 too!
Will Vasseur be able to side-step this?
Scott Mitchell-Malm
One thing I've always found to be an interesting contrast at Ferrari in 2025 is an apparent desire for the team to behave unemotionally, uncontroversially, almost in an isolated way – and having two of F1's most raw drivers.
Fred Vasseur has had to bat away a lot of questions this year about blunt, critical comments from Leclerc and Hamilton. These comments have never been particularly targeted, more an expression of honest frustration with a car not as competitive as expected and progress not as strong as hoped.
Vasseur's handled this quite consistently, saying drivers speak emotionally when they are fresh out of the car, that there are no problems, that everything will be sorted or is already sorted. I wonder if he will be able to side-step Elkann's comments so easily?
In a way, what Elkann's said is a much more heavy-handed, top-level version of Vasseur's calls for unity and calm. So you might think Vasseur is quite aligned with the principle Elkann's expressed, if not the way he went about it.
At the same time, though, Elkann's done the kind of thing Vasseur surely can't agree with. He's targeted the drivers, he's implied Ferrari isn't together and working as a team, and he's done so well removed from the immediate aftermath of the event - so seems to have done this deliberately.
It has caused significantly more scrutiny and turbulence than any of Leclerc's most blunt appraisals of Ferrari's performance this year, and represents the kind of unhelpful, corporate interference that can't chime with Vasseur's straightforward way of operating as a focused racing team.
Risking its best asset
Josh Suttill
If I were in charge of Ferrari (don't worry, things aren't that bad), the last thing I'd be doing is pointing any fingers at the drivers, not least Leclerc.
He's sacrificing the best years of his F1 career for Ferrari and getting very little in return in the way of a championship-challenging car, despite having proven himself worthy of one years ago.
Imagine how Ferrari's 2025 season looks without Leclerc. There are zero grand prix podiums on the other side of the garage and even if Hamilton hasn't delivered what was expected, he's been a big victim of Ferrari's technical missteps and ride height weakness that was exposed just after his China sprint race win.
Imagine how this season looks and the kind of pressure that would be on the team if the whole team had zero podiums?
Leclerc has instead given Ferrari seven grand prix podiums - and it could have been number eight in Brazil without Kimi Antonelli spearing into him after contact with Oscar Piastri - and a fighting chance of finishing second in the championship, when across the balance of the season it's had the fourth best car.
Leclerc is ready for when Ferrari gives him a championship-winning car and he, nor Hamilton, has anything to do with the fact that it hasn't happened yet.
All Elkann's intervention does is create some awkward questions for Leclerc, Hamilton and Vasseur to answer as soon as they arrive in Vegas.
Pointed at Leclerc?
Edd Straw
And so the politics begin at Ferrari? Elkann's pointed comment about unity, talking up the performance of some parts of the team and down that of the rest, and taking aim at the drivers is not a promising sign for the stability of the team.
In particular, the suggestion the drivers should "focus on driving and talk less" can only be interpreted as a pointed criticism of Leclerc.
Frankly, Leclerc has mostly done a very good job defending the team and talking up its prospects and although there have been moments the facade has split you can hardly blame him. Were I in Leclerc's position, I'd take that comment from Elkan as another pro to put in the 'leave Ferrari' column.
Overall, it doesn't bode well. Ferrari has underachieved badly this year, there's no question about that, and there's no problem with Elkann being critical. But the concern is where he's aiming those criticisms, in particular in seemingly targeting a driver who has been one of the few bright spots of the team this year.
It doesn't mean change is imminent, but it supports the impression that a bad start to the new regulations next year will lead to changes.
What's more, the unfavourable comparison with the Hypercar side of Ferrari's racing activities and the comments about aspects of the team that are underachieving gives some hints as to what might happen if things do go badly in the first six months of 2026.
Feels like 2016
Ben Anderson
It reminds me of the time Ferrari management, including then-team principal Maurizio Arrivabene, slapped down Sebastian Vettel for what was perceived to be Vettel's determination to drive the team forward technically and have his say outside of the confines of the cockpit. Around the time of the 2016 Japanese Grand Prix he was told (words to the effect of) 'stick to driving'.
I think it shows a certain insecurity on the part of the Ferrari hierarchy to come out with a message like this in public.
Leclerc has every right to feel aggrieved, because the end of 2024 promised much and this season has been nothing other than a disappointment - and would be worse still but for some of his excellent performances in difficult circumstances.
His longevity with this team, and clear and professed love for it despite its ongoing failure to requite his obvious affection with a championship-winning calibre car, has earned him the right to say what he thinks.
As for Hamilton, he has been disappointing, relatively speaking, but even that underwhelming union is also deeply connected to Ferrari's technical missteps this season. Ever since Hamilton's impressive China sprint victory, this season has essentially been a battle to try to run the car in a narrow set-up and ride-height window it cannot legally run in, and attempts to fix that while Ferrari has tactically chosen to neglect 2025 car development in favour of 2026 have resoundingly failed.
Elkann is right to say the car has improved, but not nearly by enough - and that's before you consider the context of Red Bull and Mercedes throwing new (flexible) front wings at their cars that Ferrari management has chosen not to pursue the development and manufacture of.
To imply the Ferrari machine has been operating perfectly while the drivers just need to suck it up is disingenuous, and is at odds with the unity Elkann says he's speaking in the interests of. It smacks of old-world 'we know best' Ferrari, rather than the kind of introspective 'always try to be better' culture Fred Vasseur has tried to instil.
Yes, maybe the drivers are moaning because this season is effectively a dead rubber for them and race victories are not on the cards now Mercedes and Red Bull have become McLaren's nearest challenger, but they have the right to feel that way and to say it. Firstly, because it's true to how they feel, and also because it's fair: there is no way anyone can say Ferrari hasn't massively underperformed from a technical perspective in 2025.
Engage brain before mouth
Gary Anderson
I’m sure right through Ferrari, if not Italy, everyone is getting a bit down and Brazil has probably just ignited the blue touch paper. Seeing Max Verstappen going from the pitlane to third just added insult to injury.
However, I don’t think it’s down to the drivers and to be honest it's good to see them going off script now and again.
Leclerc is a race winner and over one lap there are very few better at wringing time out of a car, but he still needs the machinery to do that. He hasn’t had that in 2025.
As for Hamilton, he has struggled more than I expected and is taking longer to acclimatise to a new team than Ferrari or he ever thought it would take. However, he is still a seven-time world champion and has 113 race wins to his credit so while yes, he might be getting a bit long in the tooth, but with that amount of experience Ferrari needs to take it on the chin and realise like Leclerc, Hamilton doesn’t have the car to show what he us certainly capable of.
When Elkann says the mechanics have done a good job I agree, most of the time. When he says the engineers have improved the car, that is where he has gone off-piste. Improvement is only relative to your competition and Ferrari hasn't improved as much as the others.
China was the first time we started to hear about ‘lift and coast’ from Ferrari so much. Now it is normal practice for both of its drivers. Is that progress? No. Progress is when you identify and resolve problems and finding a solution to this problem would be progress, yet it’s still there.
If it is because of plank wear at the end of the straights when the car has maximum downforce then Ferrari needs to be looking at low ride height underfloor and diffuser flow separation to reduce the maximum downforce levels. After all, there are very few circuits where there are corners at maximum speed.
Leaving the drivers to take responsibility for an inherent design flaw which on occasion leaves them looking like they are incompetent opens the door for them to be vocal about their problems.
So if the management wants to shut them up, it’s quite simple: give them a better car and allow them to exploit their talent to the full.
And I would also like to add here, once you make a statement like Elkann has, there is no going back.
Sometimes it’s better to think a little longer and engage your brain before your mouth.
Unfathomable
Jack Benyon
And the award for motivational speech of the year goes to...
I just can't get my head around the timing. Neither driver said anything seriously detrimental to the Ferrari brand last weekend in Brazil, so of all the things to criticise your drivers for after a double-DNF, it's talking too much? Unless it's come from internal talking, in which case discussing that externally hardly seems like something that would help with unity!
A lack of unity is never down to one person, either. WEC has a balance of performance rule which is almost exactly the antithesis of how F1 plays out. You made a risky driver decision signing a driver going into his 40s - that's no slight on Hamilton, but just a fact - which everyone seems to have forgotten was a very lucrative business decision for Ferrari. Leclerc's been driving well. All of these things work against Elkann's comments.
READ MORE: Ferrari president hits out at F1 drivers as cracks show
I just don't really understand any of this.
I tell you one thing that doesn't help with unity: criticising your own team to the press. This will be a storyline for weeks and will be the first thing everyone at Ferrari is asked about in Vegas. Will that help anything? Magically motivate the drivers to do better?
Ferrari's car may have improved, but its results haven't relative to the opposition. Its execution has been poor in many races. These comments are either being wildly misunderstood or make no sense. Further, they could be extremely damaging.
If I was Ferrari, I wouldn't be looking for ways to unnecessarily piss off my golden goose Leclerc, who has been extremely loyal.
