Lewis Hamilton reacts to John Elkann outburst with Ferrari blame culture verdict

Ferrari

Lewis Hamilton reacts to John Elkann outburst with Ferrari blame culture verdict

Lewis Hamilton has addressed Elkann's comments

Sheona Mountford F1 Journalist

Motorsport journalist working in F1 since 2024.

Friday 21 November 2025 18:54

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Lewis Hamilton has broken his silence to the F1 media in Las Vegas after John Elkann’s passionate outburst last week.

The Ferrari chairman made waves when he issued a brutal assessment of Hamilton and Charles Leclerc to the media after the Brazilian GP, where both drivers suffered a double DNF.

“If we look at the Formula 1 championship, we can say that our mechanics are winning the championship with their performance and everything they've done on the pit stops. If we look at our engineers, there's no doubt that the car has improved," he said.

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"If we look at the rest, it's not up to par. And we certainly have drivers who it's important that they focus on driving and talk less, because we still have important races ahead of us and it's not impossible to get second place."

Hamilton and Ferrari united after recent controversy

Elkann’s comments received widespread condemnation in the following days, but when Hamilton and Leclerc faced the media ahead of the Las Vegas Grand Prix this weekend, they refused to show any anger.

In fact, Hamilton claimed his relationship with Elkann was ‘amazing’ and hailed his passion for Ferrari, presenting a unified team.

“We’ve just been focused on doing our job back at the factory, so everyone’s super-focused on improving,” Hamilton explained.

“I mean I speak to John every week. We have an amazing relationship. The passion has not disappeared from our team.

“We’ve obviously got a steep hill to climb, but we want to finish off strong this year.”

When one reporter claimed that Elkann’s comments were evidence of blame culture at Ferrari, Hamilton gave his verdict on what the atmosphere was like within the team.

“I mean I don’t feel like there’s a blame culture here, I think look, we’re all in the same boat,” the seven-time world champion added.

“Ultimately we all have to take accountability and responsibility, absolutely all of us, and every single one of us have to play our part.”