Leo Turini: Only victories can extinguish the fire of rumors

      Leo Turrini, after almost half a century in Italian motorsport journalism, has witnessed different periods of Ferrari’s history and sadly states that the 2025 season must be acknowledged as one of its failures.

      Have I seen anything like this before?

      Yes.

      Does it depress me?

      Yes, although life’s dramas are another matter.

      Overall, very sad.

      In the case of the current Ferrari team, what is most upsetting is that it is becoming ever less noticeable, and that trend is progressing. When, for some mysterious reason, McLaren stumbles, it is not the Scuderia that takes advantage, but others.

      There is Max Verstappen, who is dominating again alongside a resurgent Red Bull Racing. There is Mercedes, which has also rallied and overtaken Ferrari in the Constructors’ Championship. To top it all off, throughout the weekend Carlos Sainz in the Williams and the drivers of the former Minardi team consistently outpaced both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.

      After yet another Grand Prix we have to listen to gloomy explanations — it becomes a habit and starts to wear thin.

      More could have been achieved, but we simply couldn’t bring everything together; we failed to get the tires up to working temperature — an eternal problem — and sometimes this is compounded by setup difficulties caused by the car scraping its underbody on the track, not to mention the unstable performance of the power unit. And so on, and so forth…

      It’s already autumn, and a solution still hasn’t been found, both for technical problems and for managerial ones. Frederic Vasseur has every right to complain about the constant rumours about Ferrari appearing in the press, but I hope he understands that only victories can extinguish the fire of gossip. For now, however, the picture is exactly this: we have to write about Ferrari’s helplessness, which inevitably comes with critical assessments. It’s all bad, very bad.

      Now a few words about Kimi Antonelli. The young driver answered all the spiteful comments on track in championship style and in Baku he almost made the podium. And to those who constantly point out that Russell invariably beats him, I want to remind you that George is an excellent driver. It would be strange if he weren’t. Kimi will definitely remain at Mercedes in 2026 and will not disappoint the fans — at least, that is what I hope.

      Finally: if I were Andrea Stella, the Italian head of the McLaren team, I would call Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris in for a talk. They need a push, because if they continue in this vein, Verstappen will begin to catch them. And when he smells a chance to win the championship, it will be very hard to stop him.