Charles Leclerc cooled talk of a rift at Ferrari after insisting chairman John Elkann wanted to simply “push the team to do better.”
Leclerc and teammate Lewis Hamilton endured a weekend to forget last time out in Brazil as both were forced to retire from the race.
A day later, and on the same weekend as Ferrari won the World Endurance Championship (WEC) in Bahrain, Elkann implored his drivers to “talk less and focus on driving”, while praising the team’s engineers despite a car which has been short of table-topping speed this year.
A number of pundits have criticised Elkann’s comments, but Leclerc was calm about the topic, revealing he spoke to the Ferrari chairman on the phone after Interlagos.
“I’m not on social media much, but I heard about this quite quickly,” Leclerc said.
“John [Elkann] called me, like he does after every grand prix, and we spoke about everything, including about what he intended to say. John wants to be constructive and push the team to do better.
“The best thing I can do as a driver is focus on the track and do my best. That’s what I’ve always done and will continue to do.
“That doesn’t mean we can’t do anything better. We can and we take that as a motivation to try and do better. Hopefully results will come as soon as possible.”
Hamilton, meanwhile, insisted he does not need to focus more on driving as he “goes to sleep thinking about driving.”
He added: “John and I, we speak almost every week. We have a great relationship. I didn’t have a reaction to it [Elkann’s comments]. I don’t look into those things.”
Outside of his sprint victory at the second round in China, Hamilton’s switch from Mercedes to Ferrari has failed to live up to its blockbuster billing.
He is 66 points behind Leclerc, without a podium to his name, while Ferrari have slipped to fourth in the constructors’ championship. The Italian team have failed to win a title of any sort in 17 years.
