Fred Vasseur is tired of the question. Asked yet again about his job security after the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the Ferrari team principal told reporters the topic now swallows half of every media session, and that the outcome is not for him to decide.

“It’s not in my hands,” he told reporters at Baku.

“For the media, for 50% of the questions [to be] about this, I think it’s a bit of a frustrating situation.”

Vasseur signed a multi-year extension last year. The noise reached a new pitch this September after Christian Horner used a Times interview during the Baku weekend to describe the Ferrari role as “the dream” and the team itself as a “sleeping giant” of the sport.

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Hamilton’s blunt answer

Lewis Hamilton has offered little quarter to the doubters. Asked in Baku whether Vasseur was still the right man to lead Ferrari, the seven-time world champion answered with a single word.

“Yes.”

He was equally short when it was put to him that Ferrari had slipped to fourth in the constructors’ pecking order.

“Why would I agree with it? I mean, I don’t know where we are. Third or second? I don’t know. We’re obviously not the second quickest at the moment, but we’re ahead of McLaren today, so maybe we’re third,” Hamilton told reporters.

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Ferrari’s afternoon in Azerbaijan returned 20 points, Charles Leclerc fourth and Hamilton sixth, and the team’s podium drought now stretches to five races. Mercedes still lead the constructors’ standings on 538 points to Ferrari’s 378, with McLaren third on 306 and seven rounds still to run.

Horner’s Ferrari pitch

Horner has been out of Formula 1 since Red Bull removed him earlier this year, and his interest in a return has been made openly.

“Ferrari is the biggest brand in F1. It’s the dream…the sleeping giant of F1,” he told The Times in comments published during the Baku weekend.

He added the caveat that any comeback would depend on a competitive project rather than status alone.

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A succession already inside the walls

Italian reporting suggests Ferrari is preparing for change without a public rupture. Any parting with Vasseur would follow the end of the 2026 season and be handled “in an orderly manner and on good terms with Maranello”, according to ScuderiaFans, with Horner and Jérôme d’Ambrosio both cited in internal discussions.

D’Ambrosio is not a hypothetical hire. The Belgian joined Ferrari as deputy team principal on 1 October 2024, reporting directly to Vasseur, and also runs the Ferrari Driver Academy. He has spent much of 2026 embedded at the factory rather than travelling with the race team.

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