“I am seriously worried.” says F1 legend, delivers damning verdict on Ferrari – For the first time since 2021, the team has completed a season without securing a single Grand Prix victory. This alone highlights the extent of the disappointment in Maranello. Matters are made worse by the fact that the Scuderia finished fourth in the Constructors’ World Championship, missing out on a top-three finish for the first time since 2020. For a team that prioritises titles over progress, the 2025 campaign has left little to celebrate.
Even before the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, former Ferrari driver Jean Alesi expressed serious concerns about the team’s direction.
In an opinion column for Corriere della Sera, the Frenchman admitted that he had deliberately avoided talking about Ferrari for weeks, unwilling to comment while emotions were running high. However, following what he described as a disastrous weekend in Qatar, Alesi felt compelled to speak out.
Former Drivers Mock Lewis Hamilton Harshly
Qatar proved to be the breaking point
Ferrari’s performance in Qatar proved to be the final straw. Charles Leclerc finished eighth, while Lewis Hamilton could manage only twelfth, a result that Alesi labelled ‘the worst Grand Prix in living memory’ for the Scuderia. For Alesi, the race symbolised a season that never truly came together.
“It was a total disappointment for us fans,” he wrote, criticising both Ferrari’s weak start to the year and their lack of progress as the season went on.
He also echoed comments previously made by Ferrari president John Elkann, who publicly criticised the drivers in an attempt to stimulate change within the team.
“I thought the president’s criticism would motivate the team to take action and provide Leclerc and Hamilton with a more competitive car,” Alesi explained. “Instead, nothing changed.”
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Drivers not the main problem
While Alesi acknowledged that Lewis Hamilton “may bear some of the blame”, he was quick to put the responsibility into perspective.
“He has won seven world championships,” Alesi noted, “while Ferrari has won nothing.”
Ferrari’s last world title dates back to 2008, meaning the team is now facing a 17-year championship drought.
For Alesi, this statistic highlights a deeper structural problem that cannot be blamed solely on the drivers. In his view, even elite talent cannot compensate for a lack of technical and strategic excellence.
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Concerns over development strategy
Alesi reserved his harshest criticism for Ferrari’s development approach. Team principal Frédéric Vasseur explained that work on the 2025 car was halted early in order to focus entirely on the all-new 2026 regulations. However, Alesi found this reasoning unconvincing.
“I am seriously worried about the future,” he wrote. “Saying that all development has been stopped to prepare for next year seems to me a very weak excuse.”
He pointed out that rival teams had managed to improve their cars in 2025 while working on their 2026 projects simultaneously.
“This attitude makes me think of an embarrassing attempt to cover up a failure,” he added.
According to FormulaPassion, Alesi later apologised personally to Vasseur for the severity of his comments. Speaking to Canal+ in Abu Dhabi, he clarified that his criticism was aimed at the overall situation rather than at individuals within Ferrari.
Ultimately, Alesi stressed that his words came from passion, not hostility. Like many fans, the former Ferrari driver simply wants to see the Scuderia back at the very top of Formula 1.
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There is grave concern at the FIA over how the all new 2026 Formula One power units will perform. In a desperate bid to prevent an epic failure in the racing spectacle, F1’s governing body convened an emergency meeting with the manufacturers in Bahrain to correct the ‘over optimistic’ power output from the hybrid side of the new engines.
Concerns were first raised by Christian Horner in 2023 that the all new specification of power units would create “Frankenstein monsters” due to an over reliance on electrical output. Almost two years later the FIA’s pow wow in Bahrain sought to address this issue.
The problem is that at a number of circuits where braking is limited and the straights are long, that the cars will be incapable of generating enough electrical charge to deliver the mandated 50% of power output.
Concerns electrical output overstated
This would result in cars ruing out of electrical charge towards the end of the straights, visibly slowing the cars as they approached the next turn. The spectacle could be disastrous for the fans and the series would descend into farce.
Yet any reduction in the amount of electrical output had to be agreed by all but one of the PU manufacturers and such agreement could not be found. The result was both the FIA and FOM issuing statements suggesting the current F1 power cycle could be truncated and a return to V*’s introduced before even 2030.
Foiled by their attempt to introduce what would be a mere software adjustment for all the teams, the FIA issued a dictate in August which outlined how they would prevent F1 becoming a farce or dominated by a single manufacturer who has aced the new PU regulations.
FIA director of day to day operations, Nicolas Tombazis revealed: “We’ve introduced a…READ MORE ON THIS STORY
Stanton is a London-based journalist specialising in sports business and sponsorship. With a degree in economics and years reporting for business-focused publications, Stanton translates F1’s complex financial world into clear, compelling narratives.