Lewis Hamilton is now learning why Fernando Alonso didn’t think Ferrari could win a world championship.
Fernando Alonso left Ferrari just over 10 years ago because he didn’t feel the team was in a position to win.
13 Nov 2025
David Comerford
F1 Oversteer

Ted Kravitz says Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari problems aren’t new. In a seismic interview this week, Ferrari chairman John Elkann told his drivers to ‘talk less’ outside the car. It was then reported that Hamilton’s feedback documents had sparked ‘resentment’ in some quarters of the team. The 40-year-old publicly revealed that he’d been reviewing Ferrari’s failings. Kravitz fears that a series of great drivers have identified the same fundamental problems, but met firm resistance. That’s why, as Alonso feared, they’re not functioning as well as their rivals.

“If Lewis is writing all these documents, a kind of winning blueprint, as to what it takes to be a top-line team, then how many times do Ferrari need to hear this, and why are they not listening to it?” he asked on the F1 Show. “When you go back to Fernando Alonso, who left Ferrari because he said that he didn’t see a team that could win consistently. That was 2014. Fernando left because he said, ‘I’ve seen what it takes to be a Red Bull or a Mercedes, and that’s not what I see at Ferrari at the moment’.”

‘Hamilton’s feedback documents had sparked resentment’;

https://www.f1oversteer.com/news/lew...-championship/


Have Lewis Hamilton’s improvement documents offended Ferrari?
It has been suggested that Lewis Hamilton may have inadvertently insulted Ferrari.
13 Nov 2025
Lewis Larkam
Crash.Net

Ted Kravitz wonders whether Lewis Hamilton has “insulted” Ferrari with his documents suggesting the improvements the team needs to fight for F1 world championships. Kravitz has suggested that Hamilton’s “winning blueprint” may not have been well received by all at Maranello.

“Fred’s not stupid, Fred’s a great team principal and I can’t think of anyone better who would do that. I don’t know whether Fred’s completely empowered to do what he wants,” Kravitz told The F1 Show. “Let’s think about the Hamilton documents that he’s been drawing up, the sort of blueprint from what he’s learnt at McLaren and 12 years at Mercedes and so many world championships.”

“Are Ferrari insulated by those documents? Did they think ‘well thank you very much but you just drive the car’. If Lewis is writing all of these documents, a kind of winning blueprint about what it takes to be a top line team, how many times do Ferrari need to hear this and why are they not listening to it?”

‘The Hamilton documents’;

https://www.crash.net/f1/news/108647...errari-f1-team


Some Ferrari staff ‘resented’ what Lewis Hamilton said about the team after joining from Mercedes
12 Nov 2025
David Comerford
F1 Oversteer

Lewis Hamilton is trying to break the cycle at Ferrari. Since the team last won the drivers’ title, they have signed four world champions but watched their drought continue. Fernando Alonso came agonisingly close to the championship in 2010 and 2012, but left empty-handed in 2014. Sebastian Vettel, his replacement, couldn’t sustain a season-long challenge to Hamilton and Mercedes, and Kimi Raikkonen wasn’t the same driver in his second stint at Maranello. Hamilton says Ferrari have had ‘amazing’ drivers but need to ‘challenge’ themselves if they’re to win again. He ‘refuses’ to follow the same path as Vettel and co.

Hamilton sent documents of feedback to Ferrari in the months after he joined from Mercedes, where he’d won six titles over a 12-year dynasty. According to ESPN, this effectively amounted to an ‘audit’ of their methods. He had taken ‘extensive notes’ on their operation and made recommendations on where they could improve. ‘Sources’ close to the team say these were ‘welcomed in some quarters’. However, others apparently ‘resented his input’. They were ‘dismissive’ of his feedback, which doesn’t bode well for 2026.

‘Resented his input’;

https://www.f1oversteer.com/news/som...from-mercedes/


Spiraling Ferrari unfairly points finger at Hamilton, Leclerc
Nov 11, 2025
Nate Saunders
ESPN.co.uk

Ferrari chairman John Elkann's decision to throw his drivers under the bus on Monday was a microcosm of everything that has haunted the company's storied Formula 1 team during its 17-year title drought. A Ferrari spokesperson told ESPN the comments were meant to be "constructive" and the chairman's way of spurring everyone on. To anyone outside the team bubble, that's a fairly charitable interpretation of what Elkann said publicly.

It was a statement that smacked of either insecurity or arrogance (or a horrible combination of both) from a man leading a company that has not won an F1 drivers' championship since 2007 or a constructors' championship since 2008. His words revealed the same misguided interference from above that plagued the outfit before and after the glory days of Michael Schumacher.

Elkann's statements have raised further questions. Should either driver vent about the car in future, are they openly defying Elkann and destroying attempts at unity behind the scenes? Is the team's current situation acceptable for Ferrari? And, more broadly speaking, does Elkann actually understand the differences in building a successful Formula 1 program and a WEC outfit?

‘John Elkann's decision to throw his drivers under the bus’;

https://www.espn.co.uk/racing/f1/sto...harles-leclerc


John Elkann told to focus on the ‘real issue’ at Ferrari by McLaren insider after blaming his drivers
13 Nov 2025
Ashley Hambly
F1 Oversteer

Tony Kanaan is a close confidante of former Ferrari driver Rubens Barrichello, with the pair of drivers once using each other’s helmets during the most prestigious events of their respective categories in 2006. Asked for his opinion on Elkann’s comments about their current driver line-up, the Brazilian said, “Ferrari is always going to be Ferrari; you’re never going to be bigger than Ferrari. Look at [Fernando] Alonso, [Sebastian] Vettel, and Rubens [Barrichello].

“I mean, I lived that with Rubens. It’s such a… The culture there, it’s Ferrari. They’re going to protect it, and you’re never going to be bigger than them. So no matter what, people are going to tell you what to do. The respect needs to be more of you towards Ferrari than actually Ferrari towards you. Unless you’re Michael Schumacher. That’s what’s happening there. The drivers are getting frustrated because they need to be vocal about it.”

“These people don’t want to talk about it because that’s not what they do. Then obviously, it takes a toll on the drivers and all of a sudden then the guy comes out of Brazil with, ‘They should talk less because they will do better.’ That tells you how little the guy has of an awareness of what the real issue is.”

“Ferrari is always going to be Ferrari”;

https://www.f1oversteer.com/news/joh...g-his-drivers/


Ferrari advised to listen to Hamilton to turn things around
13 Nov 2025
Kada Sarkozi
GPblog.com

Juan Pablo Montoya believes Lewis Hamilton could be 'unstoppable' with Ferrari once the Italian team listens to the seven-time world champion. According to former F1 driver Montoya, the seven-time world champion will not give up: “I think Lewis Hamilton has a point to prove, he won’t lie down and submit to defeat. He will win the championship or die trying, as they say. He will give it a big push next year. His frustration is due to him thinking he’s doing more than what Ferrari are doing for him."

He continued: “He feels he’s putting in a lot of effort to try make things work, but the team aren’t matching that energy. Give Hamilton the right tools and he’ll be there competing at the top. When things click and the motivation to compete is back, oh my god, Hamilton will be unstoppable.” He concluded: "The car isn’t getting better for Charles Leclerc either. The faster Ferrari’s team and engineers listen to Hamilton on how to make the car better, the better it will be for the team in the long term."

“Give Hamilton the right tools”;

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/ferra...-things-around


Ferrari must listen to what Lewis Hamilton told Niki Lauda during his toughest season at McLaren
14 Nov 2025
Ben Evans
F1 Oversteer

Lewis Hamilton’s conversation with Niki Lauda should guide Ferrari on how to make their F1 comeback. Hamilton continued: “Then, when people start questioning how good you are, and people say, oh, this person must be better, it’s frustrating that you can’t react and fix it by going faster because you don’t have the car. “That great thing for me was knowing that my team weren’t going to give up. If they’ve given up, then why are we racing?”

“I want to be a part of a team that always pushes, because for me, when I’m driving a car, whether it’s good or bad, I’m always pushing, So, I want the team to have the same mentality. And for sure, if I were with a team that didn’t have that mentality, then I’d be in the wrong place. Each weekend when they feel negative, I try to pull them up and hey, we can do it.”

‘Ferrari must listen’;

https://www.f1oversteer.com/features...on-at-mclaren/