Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc stayed away from discussing about rumours relating Christian Horner to Ferrari, as the Monegasque addresses on his own as well.
Between the races in Singapore and USA, Ferrari had to endure another barrage of rumour mill, this time linking former Red Bull boss Horner to a role at Maranello. It was the British media which initiated the reports amid a low run for the Italian manufacturer in F1 2025.
Ferrari also suffered some losses in the stock market and average results only fueled the story further. The team re-signed Frederic Vasseur weeks ago, giving it stability in terms of leadership and also driver line-up consisting of Hamilton and Leclerc, going into the big change in F1 2026.
But every now and then, there are stories pinning Ferrari, especially related to people leaving. Vasseur has been vocal to showcase his frustration on such reports. When asked Hamilton and Leclerc to address on latest stories relating to Horner, both stayed away from the topic as much they could.
“I don’t, and I’m not going to entertain rumours,” said Hamilton, who sees such stories as distraction. “I don’t know where the rumours have come from, so I can’t really shed much light on that. It’s a little distracting for us as a team. The team have made it clear where they stand in terms of re-signing Fred. Fred, I, and the whole team are working really hard on the future.
“These things aren’t helpful. Everyone back in the factory is working incredibly hard, focused, and these sorts of rumours can sometimes be distracting. So for me, it’s about keeping the focus on the goal in front of us and building on next year’s car—continuing to build a foundation so we can have better execution and better performance next year.
“As I said back in Spa—just having lots of meetings, making sure we’re sailing in the right direction,” summed up Hamilton. Teammate Leclerc concurred with the Brit. “It’s not something that you want to read and it’s not something that you want to, yeah, we are fully focused on what we want to do,” he said to media. “It’s not something that I pay attention.
“But again, I just try and ignore that completely and focus on my job. And I think that’s also what the team is doing, but it’s never nice to hear those kind of things and see those things going around the team,” summed up Leclerc, who also had to clear out rumours around him. Apart from Horner, there were reports noting that the Monegasque’s frustrations were growing every passing day.
Ever since joining Ferrari, Leclerc hasn’t had the best of times in terms of a title fight. He has had success in terms of pole positions, race wins and podiums, but that big title fight remains a dream. In fact, he has been in the hunt, but for some reason, it hasn’t materalised, even to take it to the last round.
But as usual, Leclerc played down the stories, reiterating his dream to win with Ferrari. “What I can say is what I’ve always said and that’s very clear I’ve always loved Ferrari so much and my only obsession at the moment is to win in red,” he said. “Whether it’s now or in the future and I want to bring back Ferrari to the top. And I’d like to add there are lots of speculations around me but just in general around the team for whatever reason I feel like there are too many people speaking things not coming from actual facts.
“It’s just a little bit annoying. It’s always been like that and I think as a driver. But I think as a team we just got to focus on our things which is what we are doing, but it’s just not great. It is not super nice to see all these things around the team all the time, it’s definitely not a situation we want to be in. In a way that the performance is not at the level where we want to be but we are all focused in trying to turn that situation around as I was saying.
“And whenever there is no situation where the results are not there then there are always those rumors around that comes back but yeah, I mean what I say today is what I’ve said in the past six or seven years with the team, yeah. And no, I don’t actually look at it anymore. I used to quite a bit in the past, but I just don’t think it’s bringing me anything. It’s not like I can completely ignore them as well because then when I come for media day, which I did just before some media, then you get some questions.
“You’re like, ‘oh, okay there are things that have happened maybe’ and that and we also do obviously a PR briefing which kind of updates us on what’s going around and so we are we are aware. But in between races, I don’t look at those because there’s no truth to it and the reality is that we are working extremely hard as a team and we are all very united in trying to come back at the front.
“And then what’s being said around I cannot stop that and we cannot control that. So, yeah, I definitely did a step on that. But I also think the team in the last years have improved massively in order to not get too affected by what’s going on,” summed up Leclerc. When asked about what gives him confidence that Ferrari can do it this time with the regulation changes, the Monegasque is pinning it on hope.
Additionally, he feels the work put in at Maranello is tremendous and that gives him optimism that they can finally get it right this time. But he knows it will be a huge litmus test. “I mean we are pushing massively in trying to improve our processes and in the way we work,” said Leclerc. “There are also new people coming to the team with different mindsets and also different ways of working and that is giving me a lot of optimism for the future.
“But as I said, obviously next year is going to be a very important turning point. We’ll see, but I’m optimistic because I know the team. I know the people and I know that we are working in the right direction. Even though, as I said earlier, some of our competitors came with upgrade recently and it might look like we are going backwords.
“And yeah, that it seems that we have lost a little bit of performance compared to them but that’s kind of expected when we don’t have an upgrade when the others do but that’s a choice and I hope a choice that will pay off in midterm speaking about the beginning of next year,” summed up Leclerc.
Here’s Horner meeting Zak Brown and Mohammed Ben Sulayem: https://www.instagram.com/p/DP0niL8AgTn/?img_index=1
Here’s Lewis Hamilton on Ferrari’s quali troubles
