The 2025 Formula 1 season has been a masterclass in wasted potential for Ferrari. The team that finished just 14 points behind McLaren in last year’s constructors’ championship now sits a whopping 394 points off the pace in fourth place. And while you might think some introspection would be in order from management, Chairman John Elkann has instead opted to publicly blame the two drivers in his garage: seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton and generational talent Charles Leclerc.
It was on November 10, after Ferrari’s calamitous double retirement at the São Paulo Grand Prix, that Elkann weighed in with an intervention that sent shockwaves through the paddock. Speaking at an event hosted by the Italian Olympic Committee, he saluted the team’s mechanics and engineers but made clear where he thought the real problem lay. The drivers, he insisted, need to “focus on driving and talk less.” He cited Ferrari’s victory in the World Endurance Championship that same weekend as evidence that “when Ferrari is united, when everyone is together, you can achieve great things.”
The implication was crystal clear: Ferrari’s F1 drivers aren’t team players.
Hamilton’s response came in hours. “I back my team, I back myself,” he posted on Instagram, making abundantly clear he wouldn’t be silenced. Leclerc-hitherto Ferrari’s most loyal soldier-emphasized the need for “unity” -a pointed echo of Elkann’s own words. Even veteran Italian journalist Leo Turrini, deeply connected to Ferrari’s inner circle, publicly questioned the chairman’s approach, asking whether the late Luca di Montezemolo would ever have spoken about Ferrari drivers this way.
But here’s what makes Elkann’s finger-pointing particularly galling: this isn’t Ferrari’s first rodeo with championship-caliber drivers. In fact, the team has an almost impressive track record of mismanaging world-class talent.
The Graveyard of Champions
Let’s start with Fernando Alonso, who arrived in Maranello in 2010 as a two-time world champion. He immediately challenged for the title, leading into the final race before a strategic blunder in Abu Dhabi cost him the championship by just four points. In 2012, he produced what many consider one of F1’s greatest individual seasons, dragging a clearly inferior car to within three points of Sebastian Vettel’s championship-winning total. But Ferrari’s technical shortcomings meant Alonso never got the machinery his talent deserved. He left in 2014 without a single win that season, and his relationship with the team was completely soured.
Then came Vettel himself, Ferrari’s chosen one. The four-time champion won on his debut for the team in 2015 and looked poised to end the drought. But strategic mistakes, technical failures, and mounting pressure saw his championship challenges in both 2017 and 2018 implode. His infamous crash while leading the 2018 German GP marked the beginning of the end. When he dared to criticize the team’s performance in 2016, team principal Maurizio Arrivabene publicly dressed him down. Sound familiar? By 2020, Vettel limped to a dismal conclusion to his Ferrari career.
Now Hamilton, arguably the sport’s greatest ever driver, has managed just one sprint race victory all season. After qualifying 13th in Brazil, he labeled his Ferrari experience “a nightmare I’ve been living for a while”-the flip side of his childhood dream to drive for the Prancing Horse. And Leclerc, nicknamed “Il Predestinato” (The Predestined One) by Italian media, recently admitted that he and Hamilton feel like “passengers” in a car they can’t extract more from. For a driver who has traditionally been Ferrari’s staunchest defender, this represents an unprecedented level of public frustration.
So when three world champions and a generational talent all struggle in your cars, maybe, just maybe, the problem is not the drivers.
What the Betting Markets Tell Us
If you’re wondering if it will get any better, the betting markets paint a rather sobering picture. A number of international betting sites have little faith in Ferrari’s 2026 efforts and have given the Italian squad long odds to return to championship contention despite massive changes to the regulations arriving next year.
This isn’t entirely unwarranted. Ferrari’s already hinting at potential engine reliability issues heading into 2026, and Leclerc himself has warned of “tough couple of years” if the team doesn’t nail the regulatory reset. The team currently sits fourth in the standings, their third time finishing outside the top three in the 2020s, with zero race wins and dwindling hopes of even securing second place.
The Leadership Vacuum
Here is what Ferrari’s golden era under Jean Todt and Ross Brawn demonstrates: for success, the team needs protection from interference. Todt famously created a bubble around the racing operation, shielding engineers and drivers from the political machinations of Ferrari’s hierarchy. That stability produced five straight championships with Michael Schumacher.
Compare that with Elkann’s strategy. He extended the contract of team principal Fred Vasseur until 2025 despite deteriorating results, indicating his support of the current structure even as it demonstrably fails. In four months, he has now made three separate public pleas for “unity”-and yet his latest statement actively undermines team cohesion by scapegoating the drivers.
The contrast with Ferrari’s rivals is complete. McLaren’s team-first ethos took them to this year’s constructors’ title. Mercedes stuck with Toto Wolff through a lean period so that the team could rebuild correctly. Red Bull concentrated on technical brilliance, rather than looking for public scapegoats.
The Bottom Line
Elkann’s attack on Hamilton and Leclerc reveals a misunderstanding of what’s required to win in Formula 1. You don’t publicly humiliate world-class drivers and then expect them to perform better. You don’t blame “the rest” when your engineers can’t build a competitive car. And you certainly don’t point to success in an altogether different racing series as evidence that your F1 drivers aren’t trying hard enough.
Three world champions and a generational talent cannot all be the problem. The common denominator across Ferrari’s 17-year title drought isn’t the drivers; it’s the leadership structure that consistently fails to provide them with winning machinery while demanding silence when they dare to point this out. Until Ferrari’s hierarchy learns this lesson, no amount of driver talent will end the drought. With 2026’s regulatory changes looming, the clock is ticking.
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