Ferrari chairman John Elkann has told Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton to talk less and concentrate more on driving after a dire weekend for the Italian Formula 1 team in Brazil.
Ferrari suffered a double retirement in São Paulo on Sunday, its third race of the season without either driver in the points.
Yet in Bahrain on the same weekend, Ferrari won the World Endurance Championships (WEC) for drivers and teams.
Away from Formula 1, Ferrari had a great weekend. (Getty Images: LAT Images/Jakob Ebrey)
Speaking after an Olympic sponsorship event in Rome on Monday, Elkann compared the Le Mans 24 Hours winners’ emotional triumph to the disappointment in Brazil, and appeared to question the F1 team’s unity.
He told reporters the mechanics and engineers were performing their jobs well and had improved the car, but “if we look at the rest, it is not up to scratch”.
“And we definitely have drivers who need to focus on driving and talk less because we still have important races ahead of us and getting second place [in the championship] is not impossible,” he said.
“In Bahrain, we won the WEC title. When Ferrari is united, we get the results.”
Ferrari, a close runner-up to McLaren last season, has slipped to fourth in the constructors’ standings — behind champions McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull — and both its drivers have sounded frustrated.
Seven-times world champion Hamilton, who joined from Mercedes in January, said after Sunday’s race at Interlagos that his dream of driving for Ferrari had become something of a nightmare.
Things have not been right at Ferrari for either Lewis Hamilton or Charles Leclerc, but Ferrari bosses say the car is not the issue. (AP Photo: Andre Penner)
“This is a nightmare, and I have been living it for a while,” Hamilton told Sky Sports.
“The flip between the dream of driving for this amazing team and the nightmare of the results we have had, the ups and downs, it’s challenging.”
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He later added that there were positives but that he and the team had “to fight through those hardships at the moment” in an interview with Viaplay.Â
“I have to believe that these hardships lead to … I believe there is something extraordinary up ahead in my life and in my destiny.
“I truly still believe in this team and what we can achieve together. I just have to keep pushing and keep giving them everything I can.”
The Briton has yet to stand on the podium in 21 races, although he did win a sprint in China in March.
Hamilton retired from Sunday’s race just after the halfway mark after two opening-lap collisions left him with a severely damaged car. He was handed a five-second penalty for one of them, which he served.
Leclerc was pushed out in a three-way battle for second place with Italian Kimi Antonelli, second for Mercedes, and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who served a penalty for the incident.
The Monegasque, now in his seventh year at Maranello and Ferrari through and through, was fifth and Hamilton seventh in the Saturday sprint race.
Reuters/ABC
