{"id":133487,"date":"2025-11-11T06:01:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T06:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/133487\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T06:01:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T06:01:11","slug":"hamilton-and-leclerc-told-to-focus-on-their-driving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/133487\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamilton and Leclerc told to ‘focus on their driving’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lewis Hamilton and his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc have been told to “focus on their driving and talk less” by team president John Elkann.<\/p>\n

Hamilton and Leclerc failed to finish in Sunday’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix<\/a> and sit sixth and fifth respectively in the drivers\u2019 championship, while Ferrari slipped from second to fourth in the constructors\u2019 standings.<\/p>\n

Hamilton was eventually retired by Ferrari on lap 40 in Sao Paulo having collided with Carlos Sainz\u2019s Williams and then Alpine\u2019s Franco Colapinto early in the race.<\/p>\n

The seven-time world champion also received a five-point penalty for his misjudged attempt to overtake Colapinto, while Leclerc was forced to retire on lap six after a collision which was not his fault.<\/p>\n

Elkann, speaking at an event in Milan to promote the 2026 Winter Olympics and quoted by Gazzetta dello Sport, said: “In Formula 1, on the one hand, we have the mechanics who did their job, including poles and pit stops.<\/p>\n

“The engineers did the same, with the car clearly improving. The rest wasn\u2019t up to par.”<\/p>\n

Elkann appeared to point the finger at Ferrari\u2019s drivers, adding: “They should focus on driving and talk less. We still have a few races left, and it\u2019s not impossible to finish second.”<\/p>\n

Hamilton said after the race at Interlagos that it was a “devastating result” and added on Sky Sports: “This is a nightmare, and I have been living it for a while.<\/p>\n

\"Lewis
\nLewis Hamilton: ‘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’<\/p>\n

“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\u2019s challenging.”<\/p>\n

Hamilton said in a later interview with Viaplay that “it would be wrong to say that there are no positives at all”.<\/p>\n

“If you look at Charles\u2019 performance in qualifying, it shows that the car does have some pace in it,” the 40-year-old said.<\/p>\n

“But we are just really having to fight through those hardships at the moment. I have to believe that these hardships lead to\u2026 I believe there is something extraordinary up ahead in my life and in my destiny.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

Follow the RT\u00c9 Sport WhatsApp channel<\/a> for the best news, interviews, analysis and features, as well as details of our sports coverage across all RT\u00c9 platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton and his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc have been told to “focus on their driving and talk…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-133487","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\/133487","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=133487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}