{"id":132646,"date":"2025-11-10T19:11:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T19:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/132646\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T19:11:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T19:11:09","slug":"ferrari-chairman-elkann-criticises-hamilton-and-leclerc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/132646\/","title":{"rendered":"Ferrari chairman Elkann criticises Hamilton and Leclerc"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ferrari chairman John Elkann says the company&#8217;s Formula 1 drivers Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc &#8220;need to focus on driving and talk less&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Elkann&#8217;s comments come on the back of a Sao Paulo Grand Prix last weekend in which Ferrari suffered a double retirement and Hamilton described his maiden season with the team as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/formula1\/articles\/c0l724522dlo\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a &#8220;nightmare&#8221;<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ferrari dropped to fourth in the constructors&#8217; championship as a result of the race. They are 36 points behind Mercedes and four adrift of Red Bull with three grands prix and a sprint remaining.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Elkann said at an Olympics sponsorship event in Rome on Monday that the team&#8217;s mechanics and engineers were performing well, but &#8220;if we look at the rest, it is not up to scratch&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He added: &#8220;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 is not impossible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;In Bahrain, we won the World Endurance Championship title. When Ferrari is united, we get results.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Elkann&#8217;s remarks reflect the frustration and disappointment at Ferrari, who came close to becoming constructors&#8217; champions last year but have failed to win a grand prix this season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But they are said to be meant to be taken in a constructive way as a spur to improve.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">McLaren, who beat Ferrari by only 14 points last year, won the title with six races remaining this season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The constructors&#8217; championship determines the teams&#8217; prize money and each position gained close to the top is worth approximately $10m (\u00a37.6m) over the place below.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hamilton won the sprint race in China at the second race of the season but is yet to stand on a grand prix podium.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Leclerc &#8211; who qualified third in Sao Paulo at the weekend but was taken out of the race in a crash with Mercedes&#8217; Kimi Antonelli after the Italian collided with McLaren\u2018s Oscar Piastri &#8211; has scored seven podiums, with a best result of second in Monaco and Mexico.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ferrari chairman John Elkann says the company&#8217;s Formula 1 drivers Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc &#8220;need to focus&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-132646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}