Ferrari chairman John Elkann on Monday told Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton to talk less and concentrate more on driving after a dire weekend for the Italian Formula One team in Brazil.
Ferrari suffered a double retirement in Sao Paulo on Sunday, their third race of the season without either driver in the points.
Also, at the weekend in Bahrain, Ferrari won the FIA World Endurance Championships (WEC) for drivers and teams.
Photo: Reuters
Speaking after an Olympic sponsorship event in Rome, Elkann compared that emotional triumph by the 24 Hours of Le Mans winners to the disappointment of 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, close runners-up to McLaren last season, have slipped to fourth in the constructors’ standings — behind champions McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull — and both 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 also become something of a nightmare.
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.
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