Lewis Hamilton has denied Italian media reports that he’s attempting to have Ferrari engineers replaced following a string of disappointing results and rumours of friction with team boss Frédéric Vasseur.
Italy’s Corriere della Sera, the country’s most widely read paper, reported earlier this week that “there is talk that Lewis has requested changes to key trackside personnel and that his relationship with [team principal Frederic] Vasseur is no longer what it used to be”.
It followed reports in the same paper that tensions had flared inside Ferrari as its title chances collapsed thanks to a run of badly executed races and poor performances.
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Cracks supposedly began showing at the team’s disastrous home race in Monza, where Charles Leclerc crashed out and Hamilton finished an uncompetitive sixth.
Hamilton appeared to blame Vasseur for the poor race coordination between himself and Leclerc that led to them clashing at the first turn of the race and for other squandered chances at previous events, including a potential lost victory at the Dutch Grand Prix.
“Ultimately it comes from the top,” he said at the time. “It trickles down, the decisions, and so it starts with Fred.
“There’s only so much you can say, so much you can push and shout from the mountain top.
“Yesterday I said that we’ve got to look at just how we communicate, because if we continue to travel the same path, we get the same result — and we keep getting the same result.”
Corriere della Sera described Hamilton as playing a “dangerous game for internal harmony”.
“Hamilton … carefully calculates the potential impact of his words; nothing is ever left to chance,” the paper reported.
“This habit of publicly comparing Ferrari’s dynamics to Mercedes’ — and indirectly criticising Vasseur rather than projecting unity — risks undermining a team already under pressure rather than building it on a foundation of trust. But what is the real objective here?
“It is a dangerous game for internal harmony — unless Hamilton aims to claim credit for selecting the new team principal, just as he does for the chassis, suspension, or liveries…
“We could also flip the question: is Hamilton dismantling the team because it isn’t working, or is the team failing because someone keeps tearing it apart just as things are coming together?
“It is worth noting that while speaking out boldly to the media is easy, it may also signal an inability to be equally persuasive behind closed doors.”
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The commentary has made its way to Hamilton, who took to social media to dismiss them.
“I’ve seen some of the stories that have gone out and I want to clear it up here,” he said. “I’ve never asked for anyone on my team to be replaced. Everyone I work with works hard every day, and their dedication is what moves us forward.
“I always try to empower and lift people to be the best versions of themselves or at least see the best in themselves. I may not always achieve that, but it’s my intention and what I’m here to do. We all work together, and that will continue.”
Long-time Italian journalist Giorgio Terruzzi told his podcast Terruzzi Racconta this week that communication between Vasseur and become problematic and that the relationship between the boss and his team was labouring.
“The ‘Vasseur issue’ is a recurring theme; it pops up every year because of the way things are managed,” he said. “The problem is real, just as the relationship with [Ferrari CEO Benedetto] Vigna is now virtually non-existent.
“There is also a sense of friction at Maranello because he is rarely seen around. They call him ‘Napoleon’ because he seems to adopt the attitude of an absolute ruler — a bit off-putting, a bit arrogant.”
Terruzzi also suggested that Ferrari is weighing up its post-Vasseur era but has no concrete alternatives, with the company’s reportedly preferred successor Antonello Coletta, the successful endurance racing boss, apparently not interested.
Fellow veteran journalist Pino Allievi added that Ferrari chairman John Elkann hasn’t given up on luring Christian Horner to the team despite the job not matching the former Red Bull Racing chief’s desire to have a stake in his next venture.
“Elkann is fond of Horner, but I don’t think Horner would go for that arrangement.” He said: “He wants to be a manager in the mould of [Mercedes boss an co-owner] Wolff.
“They’d like [McLaren principal] Andrea Stella, but I believe he turned them down just a couple of months ago.”
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RED BULL NONCOMMITTAL ON HADJAR COMEBACK DATE
Red Bull Racing boss Laurent Mekies won’t commit to returning Isack Hadjar to the cockpit for next weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix as the French driver continues his injury recovery program.
Hadjar fractured his wrist in a training accident during the midseason break and has missed all three grands prix since then, with Liam Lawson standing in for him and Yuki Tsunoda replacing Lawson at Racing Bulls.
Though Hadjar is believed to be likely to return in Baku, Mekies said his recovery program wouldn’t be rushed, with little on the line in an early comeback.
“I think we have learned that it’s fundamentally normal time for the sort of injuries he has,” Mekies said in Spain of his driver’s extended absence.
“We will continue with the same approach than what we had. We will evaluate the situations in a week’s time. We have a full week — more than a full week — to evaluate the situation to see how he feels and then to put him on the simulator, to expose him to real-life constraints.
“If he feels close to 100 per cent, we go for it. If he feels the recovery is not completed, we will stick [with] our approach to put his recovery first.
“What we don’t want to do is by having an early return, compromise his long-term capacity to come back to 100 per cent.”
Though Hadjar is surely determined to return to the cockpit as quickly as possible, he has taken advice from MotoGP title leader Marc Márquez, who has spent the last six seasons battling the repercussions of attempting to rush his comeback from a broken arm.
Márquez broke his right humerus at the 2020 season opener in Jerez but attempted to ride at the following weekend’s race at the same circuit, infamously completing 20 decline push-ups to prove his fitness to compete.
MotoGP doctors allowed him to ride, but he withdrew after practice in pain and didn’t race for the rest of the season, in part because he later required further surgeries — one to repair a broken plate in his arm and another for a bone graft.
In 2022 he went under the knife again to break and reset the bone after it was discovered to have healed 30 degrees out of rotation.
He continues to suffer problems with his right arm, with his surgeon saying it is operating at only 50 per cent of its capacity owing to seven surgeries over six years, the most recent being to replace a bent screw that was pinching a nerve.
He nonetheless won last year’s championship and last weekend took the lead in the 2026 rider standings.
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ALPINE HIRES EX-MERCEDES TECHNICAL BOSS
Alpine has hired former Mercedes technical chief Mike Elliott as its chief technical officer as it attempts to keep up the momentum of its 2026 gains.
Elliott will slot into the newly created position above executive technical director David Sanchez — who joined the team in 2024 from Ferrari and a three-month stint at McLaren — to “lead and oversee the technical and engineering functions at the team’s factory in Enstone”.
The 52-year-old engineer has worked for the team previously, having been its principal aerodynamicist from late 2008 until halfway through 2012, when he joined Mercedes as its head of aerodynamics and later became its technology director.
Mercedes rose meteorically with the change of rules in 2014, winning eight constructors title through to the end of 2021.
But Elliott’s final years at Mercedes were less successful. He took the helm as technical director for 2022 and oversaw the team’s disastrous start to the ground effect era, characterised by the so-called ‘zeropod’ aerodynamic design that proved impossible to master outside the wind tunnel.
It doubled down on the idea for the following season but ultimately changed tack halfway through the year.
Mercedes responded with the unusual decision to facilitate a swap Elliott with his predecessor James Allison, who had been serving in the more strategic chief technical officer role since 2021. The team sold it as having been Elliott’s decision rather than a call by team management.
Elliott departed the team six months later, which Mercedes said was also his own decision.
Mercedes has returned to title-winning form this season with Allison still in place as technical director.
Elliott joins an Alpine team attempting to consolidate its big step forward from its dire last-place finish in the 2025 championship.
The team cut off development for last year’s car early to hit the ground running in 2026 with a new Mercedes customer engine, having ditched its own in-house Renault power unit.
It currently sits sixth in the standings, nine points behind Racing Bulls.
Alpine said Elliott’s arrival “strengthens the team’s technical capabilities as the team looks to build on the improved performances on track and close the gap to the top four teams”.