In the mid to late nineties, the Williams F1 team dominated both the constructors’ and drivers’ championships. As a result, they could have their pick of drivers up and down the grid. No one was out of reach, and no one would turn down the opportunity to drive for a bona fide championship-winning team.
However, since their last championship-winning season in 1997, Williams has slowly but surely dropped out of the championship equation. Some seasons, they’ve dropped to the very back of the field, such has been their fall from glory. Often, over the last decade and a half, they’ve had to put pay drivers in their car just to keep the lights on.
What is the point of this story? It is the fact that past glory does not equal permission to forever strut around the paddock resting on titles won decades ago. Indeed, even nostalgia is just that – a glorious memory of the good times, but certainly not a reality. In their defence, Williams have not done this. They aren’t asking to be glorified based on past successes. Instead, they’ve put their heads down and are determined to rebuild the team into something better.
This isn’t the case at Ferrari. Their CEO, John Elkann, has recently been quoted as telling the drivers – that’s Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton – to get on with the job, implying that it is a privilege to drive for Ferrari and that they have the pick of the paddock should they require replacements for the incumbent drivers.
Up to a point, Elkann is right. To drive the famous prancing horse in Formula 1 is a dream that most drivers have. But hanging on to this mythology can only get you so far. Despite not having won a title for nearly two decades, Elkann seems to think that Ferrari has a permanent right to superiority. They don’t. And nostalgia will only get you so far.
Over the last two decades, they’ve had Kimi Räikkönen, who remains the last Ferrari driver to win a world championship; they’ve had double world champion and arguably one of the greats of the sport, Fernando Alonso; they’ve had four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel. None of these drivers has been able to win a title in a Ferrari. In 2025, they have seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who couldn’t win a race, let alone a championship.
Through driver changes, changes to engineering and design staff, and major regulatory changes, Ferrari has been unable to mount any sort of serious and sustained challenge. But John Elkann would have you believe that the problem is the drivers.
This is exactly Ferrari’s biggest problem. They think that they are still the legendary team that once won five consecutive titles with Michael Schumacher, that dominated Formula 1. But they are deluded, and they have become nothing more than also-rans without the ability to take responsibility for their failings.
The Netflix-era fan has never seen a successful Ferrari team, and for them, the once fabled Italian team is nothing more than a midfield contender. They aren’t true believers who worship at the altar of Ferrari, no matter how poor their results. They’ve been given nothing to believe in, and to many of them, being a Ferrari fan isn’t a near-religious experience as it may have been for fans from years gone by.
But those in charge of Ferrari either aren’t able to realise this or refuse to acknowledge it. Either way, what Elkann and co. would do well to recognise is that the newer F1 fan doesn’t generally have an allegiance to Ferrari but rather have invested themselves in Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton.
Therefore, effectively attempting to shift the blame for a serious lack of performance to the drivers is not going to play well. This isn’t the early 2000s, and the sooner Ferrari realises this and let go of their long-gone superiority, the better. A long, hard look in the mirror at Ferrari HQ is desperately needed. Without it, there is little chance that Ferrari will ever return to the top of the sport.
