Were Elkann’s Remarks Harsh on Hamilton and Leclerc?

As the 2025 Formula 1 season barrels toward a high-pressure three-race finale, all eyes turn to Las Vegas, where Lando Norris arrives with a healthy 24-point cushion over McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri. With Qatar and Abu Dhabi still ahead, the championship remains very much alive.

Before the action kicks off on the Strip, Andrew Benson tackles your latest questions.

Did Ferrari chairman John Elkann go too far by telling Hamilton and Leclerc to “talk less and focus on driving”? – Jordan

Elkann’s comments — dropped the day after the São Paulo Grand Prix — caused an immediate uproar. Ferrari never clarified what triggered them, but the timing suggests Lewis Hamilton’s raw and emotional post-race remarks were fresh on his mind.

Hamilton had described his first Ferrari season as “a nightmare,” which fits his pattern: after tough results, he often speaks from the heart and exaggerates his frustrations. Remember Hungary, when he called himself “useless” and joked Ferrari should “change drivers”? No one in Maranello took that literally.

Context matters. Minutes after venting in Brazil, Hamilton reaffirmed his belief in Ferrari and spoke optimistically about the future — precisely the spirit a team boss would want from a seven-time champion.

What rubbed many people the wrong way wasn’t the tone of Elkann’s comments but their accuracy.

Praising the mechanics for their ultrafast pit stops was fair — Ferrari lead the charts.
But claiming the car has “undoubtedly improved” doesn’t match the numbers:

• In the first half of the season, Ferrari were 0.372s off the average qualifying pace
• In the second half, the deficit widened to 0.472s

Hamilton has had inconsistencies but has generally trended upward.
Leclerc, meanwhile, has been exceptional — one of the season’s standout drivers — and his criticism of the car’s performance is shared by everyone at Ferrari, Elkann included.

Ferrari demand victory; it’s coded into the team’s DNA. Yet both drivers have remained loyal, invested, and committed. That’s why Elkann’s message, whether intended as motivation or not, likely didn’t land softly.

Is the grid closer than ever — and will new regulations ruin that? – Matt

When cars converge in performance, driver skill naturally becomes a bigger differentiator.
However, modern F1 also provides tools that compress gaps — telemetry being the biggest. Drivers who need longer to reach the limit can now study teammates’ data corner-by-corner and close the deficit over a weekend.

A perfect example: Fernando Alonso vs Esteban Ocon at Alpine.
Alonso usually started a weekend multiple tenths ahead, but Ocon would gradually claw his way onto level terms by qualifying.

Another factor is the extraordinary depth of modern F1 talent.
Right now the grid features at least seven drivers who would shine in any era:

• Hamilton
• Verstappen
• Alonso
• Leclerc
• Norris
• Piastri
• Russell

That’s an incredibly high bar.

History suggests any major rules reset — like the 2026 regulations — risks blowing open performance gaps again. We saw it with Mercedes in 2014 and Red Bull in 2022. But today’s field is packed with capable teams, so even if someone nails the new rules early, the grid should tighten relatively quickly.

Should F1 give rookies more testing in current cars? – Chris

There’s a case for it — but the rookies themselves are arguably proving it unnecessary.

Kimi Antonelli, Oliver Bearman, and Isack Hadjar all adapted impressively with the minimal running current rules allow.

F1 teams have zero appetite for expanding testing because of the cost. Instead, the sport has opened other pathways:

• Each team must give rookies two FP1 sessions per driver
• Teams increasingly rely on TPC (previous years’ cars) and THC (historic cars) test programs

Antonelli’s extensive 2024 TPC running is already seen as a template for how to prepare young talents without increasing official testing.

Will Aston Martin become contenders once Newey takes control of their 2026 car? – Ian

Predicting next season’s pecking order is always a gamble — nobody truly knows until the first race weekend.

What we can say is Adrian Newey has a proven history of mastering major rule resets:

• 1998: transformed McLaren
• 2009: turned Red Bull into title challengers
• 2022: unlocked the foundations of Red Bull’s recent dominance

He joined Aston Martin with more lead time than he had when he moved to McLaren in the late ’90s, and he has Honda’s factory backing for the upcoming engine era.

But Aston Martin’s biggest obstacle isn’t engineering — it’s instability.

In the past few years:

• Multiple senior leaders have been hired and replaced
• CEO Andy Cowell joined just last year
• Newey arrived in March 2025
• Enrico Cardile switched from Ferrari only in August 2024

A structure that unsettled takes time to gel.
Expecting instant success in 2026 would be optimistic — bordering on miraculous.

But with Newey, miracles suddenly feel a little more plausible.