Why are the Italian media so hard on Ferrari? Surely this puts more pressure on the team. - Martin
Ferrari have a different status within Italy from that of other teams in their home countries.
They are regarded as a national team and as such the population feels invested in them and their performance. So people feel they have a right to express their opinion about how they're doing, because they care.
It is part of what makes Ferrari special, and what makes it a more intense, high-pressured environment than any other team.
It comes with the territory and anyone who thinks it doesn't is deluding themselves. It's also worth pointing out that it is not the media's job to support an F1 team. It is to report on it and scrutinise it, objectively and with rigour.
This question presumably arises from the remarks Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur made in Canada following reports in two leading newspapers in Italy on the eve of the race weekend that his position was in question.
Vasseur was not happy at all, and he said: "I don't know the target. I don't understand the target... in this case, I don't see the point. Perhaps it's for them the only way to exist. This is probably more the reason. But it's really hurting the team.
"It's not like this that we'll be able to win a championship. At least not with this kind of journalist around us."
It's understandable that Vasseur would be upset. Although he said his main concern was not himself, because he knew the scrutiny that came with the job, but the other staff members whose names periodically appear in the paper, either directly or indirectly, by individuals from other teams being linked with Ferrari.
The thing is, these reports appeared in probably the two most respected Italian newspapers covering sport - Gazzetta dello Sport and Corriere della Sera. And on the same day.
I'm told they were not coordinated, and that would be highly unlikely anyway, given they are rival publications.
The facts of Ferrari's current situation are that they entered the year, having come close to winning the constructors' championship last season, believing and saying they could compete for the title. And they have fallen a long way short of that so far.
Ultimately, that is Vasseur's responsibility.