Ferrari chairman ‘must have rocks in his head’ in heartbreaking Sainz reveal
Ferrari chairman John Elkann “must have rocks in his head” to have replaced Carlos Sainz with Lewis Hamilton for the F1 2025 season.
That is the claim of former F1 team owner Eddie Jordan, who has revealed that Sainz and his father were reduced to tears as they prepared to bid farewell to Ferrari at last weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
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Hamilton, who will turn 40 in January, announced back in February that he will join Ferrari on a multi-year contract from the F1 2025 season, ending his long and successful association with Mercedes.
The early announcement meant both Hamilton and Williams-bound Sainz were forced to spend the entire F1 2024 campaign with their current employers in the knowledge that they would part ways at the end of the year.
Despite the crushing blow that his Ferrari contract would not be renewed, Sainz produced arguably the most impressive season of his career to date in F1 2024, collecting victories in Australia and Mexico.
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Although he managed to claim wins in Britain and Belgium, meanwhile, Hamilton was heavily beaten by team-mate George Russell in qualifying, with the seven-time World Champion admitting he is “definitely not fast anymore” towards the end of the season.
Appearing on the Formula For Success podcast, Jordan claimed that Hamilton’s public concerns over his lack of one-lap pace will have alarm bells ringing as Ferrari prepare to welcome the British driver next month.
And he argued that Elkann has made a huge mistake by opting to replace Sainz, who “still doesn’t quite understand” why he has not been retained as Charles Leclerc’s team-mate.
Jordan said: “I got such sh*t for saying that I thought Lewis should not be going to Ferrari because of what he said.
“When people say things like ‘I don’t think I’m fast enough anymore’, that registers in my head.
“I’m such a person that, yes, I believe in talent; yes, I believe in performance; yes I believe in speed.
“But I’m a psychological person. I like to know what’s going on inside that brain, because I think fundamentally what’s going on in there very often gets replicated back in the job, whether that’s driving a car, a truck, a train, a crane, it doesn’t matter. It’s how you approach the moment.
“Do I think, this time next year, we will all say: ‘Jesus, Lewis was amazing?’
“I hope I’m able to say that. But at the moment, I have to say Leclerc is quick.
“But the way we saw Sainz, who in their right mind [would replace him]? John Elkann must have rocks in his head to have made that decision.
“I’m particularly close to his father, Carlos Sr, and when I spoke to him to say what a great job he’d done, Carlos Sr was in tears.
“Carlos himself was in tears. He still doesn’t quite understand why he was let go.
“And to be quite honest, neither do I.”
Jordan’s fellow pundit, the former McLaren and Red Bull driver David Coulthard, suggested that Ferrari simply found the allure of Hamilton, the most decorated driver in F1 history, hard to resist.
And he claimed that Hamilton’s decision to walk away from his current team has solved a problem for Mercedes, allowing the team to avoid an awkward conversation about ushering the British driver into retirement.
Mercedes announced at the Italian Grand Prix that teenage sensation Andrea Kimi Antonelli will be Hamilton’s successor.
Coulthard said: “I guess the simple answer to that is that the draw of a seven-time World Champion, the most successful driver in all the stats – poles, wins, all of the good things that you’d want beside your name – [was irresistible].
“And let’s remind ourselves that when the announcement came out that he was going to Ferrari, there was a little bump on the stock market as well.
“Reflecting on Lewis’s time at Mercedes, in many ways this decision saves a problem for Mercedes because they’ve been able to celebrate an incredible, successful partnership – all of Lewis’s victories in Formula 1 have had Mercedes power – it was always going to come to an end at a certain point.
“And this now means it’s like: ‘Over to you, Ferrari. Good luck.’
“Let’s assume that Ferrari give him a winning grand prix car, Charles Leclerc is pretty quick and that’s not going to be a work of a moment for him.
“It’s slightly confusing how what was been, by anyone’s standards, a lacklustre year, why he was able to and how he was able to put in such a strong performance on Sunday [in Abu Dhabi].
“It was almost like one final hurrah at Mercedes and he sort of schooled George on how to drive a grand prix.”
