Lewis Hamilton says media criticism has taken a toll on the members of Ferrari’s Formula 1 team, amid a tough season in Maranello.
Although the team was cautious when publicly setting goals for 2025, expectations were high after it missed out on the 2024 constructors’ title by just 14 points against McLaren.
Ferrari has ended up not winning a single race in 2025 – which is unlikely to change this weekend in Abu Dhabi – with Hamilton even failing to reach the podium.
The Scuderia is highly scrutinised by Italian media, to the extent that team boss Frederic Vasseur’s sacking was rumoured in renowned Italian publications La Gazzetta dello Sport and Corriere della Sera back in June – however the situation has seemingly not been just about Vasseur, instead impacting the team as a whole.
“The negativity that's constantly within the media and everything like that, that affects them,” Hamilton pointed out. “They get home to their wives and their wives say ‘they've been saying this about where you work’, and I'm sure that's tough, and the kids, and all those things. So there's a huge effect on lots of people.”
When the seven-time world champion’s comments were loosely mentioned to Vasseur – described as “a bit of a negative feeling in the team, particularly because of comments by the media, but also other reasons” – the Frenchman insisted that the squad needed to stay focused on the task at hand.
“For sure, it's not helping, but it's our job that you know that you do good results,” he said. “Quite often you are world champion, you are in a tough session, you are nowhere, but as a team we have to stay in our bubble and try to get the best from what we have.
“For sure you have ups and downs, for sure you have to deal with this kind of situation, but Max was able to do it. He was [P8] in quali in Budapest, he was [P9] in the race, and then he started to win races. It means that you can come back.”
Ferrari’s plight has been compounded by its late-season slump; it slid out of the battle for second or even third in the constructors’ championship after stopping its 2025 car development as early as late April in order to focus on F1’s new technical regulations for 2026.
“The development has not been an issue,” Hamilton insisted. “I wanted them to move to next year's car. I wanted to make sure we started early.”
Still, both Ferrari drivers cut downcast figures in the Qatar GP media pen, with the SF-25 even more unstable than usual at the Losail track, and they did not conceal their pessimism.
“I can understand their frustration,” Vasseur assured. “And trust me, if you asked me the question when I'm on the pitwall at the end of the session, I think I would have replied probably with the same words. And I understand their frustration in the TV pen. Now the most important is when they are back into the garage with the mechanics, the engineers, to try to find a solution.”
Additional reporting by Cihangir Perperik and Stuart Codling
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