Ferrari has never been short on myth and legend. The scarlet cars, the tifosi, the weight of history. But the last few weeks have exposed something older than any championship drought: a culture that thinks all you need is Ferrari, hires world class talent and then tells them to shut up.
When Ferrari chairman John Elkann told Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc that they should “focus on driving and talk less”, it struck a nerve far beyond the paddock. It revealed the core tension inside Ferrari today. You recruit two of the sharpest, most insightful drivers of their generation, you ask them to help rebuild the team, and then the moment they say something uncomfortable, you tell them to keep their opinions to themselves.
Damon Hill summed it up: “I think it was ill advised because I don’t think that’s helpful.” Johnny Herbert was even clearer: “For John to come out there and almost tell the drivers to shut up is probably not a beneficial thing.”
Let’s translate that for the hard of hearing subtlety. Ferrari thinks that being Ferrari is enough to not have to listen to good advice. They might not realise it, but this is not a Formula 1 problem. It is an organisational problem dressed in red.
When you hire experts but fear their expertise
Strip away the glamour, and what Hamilton and Leclerc are facing is something I see in companies and charities all the time. People are hired for their brilliance, then punished the moment they attempt to use it.
Hill explains the fundamental truth: “The drivers’ job is to be critical of the team in pursuit of a better product… they cannot make any progress unless you find some faults in it.”
Herbert drives the same point home: “To win a championship you need a good car, so you have to sometimes be vocal.”
This is the bit organisations don’t say out loud. They want the prestige of saying they have hired the best. They do not always want the consequences of that decision.
Ferrari’s public stance shows the danger. The criticism is aimed at the most visible people. But the root cause, as Herbert notes, is upstream: “The drivers haven’t got the best equipment… the problem is back at the factory.”
It is easier to silence the people who speak the truth than to look honestly at the system producing the failure.
Why silencing talent never works
When people are told to stop talking, they stop sharing insights, not opinions. The information doesn’t disappear. It just stops reaching the people who need it. Ferrari knows this. The best teams in history always valued criticism over comfort. Patrick Head’s reaction to Damon Hill’s first test in a Williams proves it. Hill told him the car was brilliant. Head immediately replied: “We were hoping you’d be rather more critical.” That is what a high performance culture sounds like. Not defensiveness. Not hierarchy. Not history as a shield. Just truth in service of improvement.
Legacy is not leadership
Ferrari’s problem is not that they care about their legacy. It is that they mistake legacy for strategy.
Herbert captures the frustration: “It’s never been able to click… and I don’t know why. It’s trying to attract the very best and it hasn’t attracted the very best.”
The truth is uncomfortable. Ferrari is a global icon with a recent record that does not match its mythology. You can see it in the revolving door of leadership, the repeated resets, the cycles of hype and disappointment.
The pattern is familiar. Organisations with long histories assume the brand knows best. New people are expected to fit the established culture, not reshape it. Past glories become a justification for present rigidity.
The lesson Ferrari is teaching all of us
Most organisations aren’t Ferrari, but the pattern is universal.
- You hire a brilliant strategist, then override their strategy because you prefer the old one.
- You recruit a skilled head of communications, then rewrite every message they produce.
- You bring in a new operations lead, then block every improvement because “we tried that once before”.
It is the same mistake in a different uniform.
If you genuinely hire the best person for the job, your job is to let them make the job better. Not quieter. Not safer. Better.
That means three commitments:
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Ask for the truth and reward people for giving it.
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Treat criticism as expertise, not disloyalty.
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If your instinct is to tell people to talk less, listen more instead.
Ferrari’s turmoil makes this lesson painfully clear. When you silence the people who understand the problem best, you get the same results year after year. You get frustration. You get decline. You get a team with world class drivers and a car that cannot match them.
The irony is obvious. Anyone can buy excellence. Only a few know how to listen to it.
Ferrari hired the best. The question now is whether they are willing to hear them.
