I just don't think Hamilton has been performing so poorly he deserves this kind of talk from his team's own executive let alone the one who signed him on. His results after the summer have been:
- SAP: Damage due to his own (small) mistake. Double DNF
- MXC: Was screwed over by the FIA/team (not his fault), debatably unwarranted penalty after. P8 (Lec P2)
- USA: Unremarkable but good race, beat Leclerc in the sprint. P4 (Lec P3)
- SIN: Brakes failure at the end. Not really a good place to compare since Lec was driving more carefully. As I've said before, I think the team is to blame for this. P8 (Lec P6)
- AZE: Better than Leclerc across the whole weekend. P8 (Lec P9)
- ITA: Good race, made up many positions after starting P10 due to a grid penalty. P6 (Lec P4)
- NED: Damage due to his own mistake. Double DNF
While he's made more mistakes than Leclerc and been generally performing poorer, was Elkann or anyone really expecting Hamilton to beat Leclerc? Anyone who thought that was severely underrating Leclerc's abilities. From Zandvoort to now he has 39 points and Leclerc has 63, that would be slightly closer if things in Mexico had gone differently. Actually, Hamilton has brought more points to the team than Antonelli has relative to Russell's results since Zandvoort, and everyone has been talking about how good Antonelli has been recently. 61% of Leclerc's points is hardly a gap large enough to warrant Elkann's comment.
Like Emag said, even if Hamilton has underperformed across the season, he is not the main reason for the team's failure compared to last season. The car and communication have been far more impactful to their final points total than Hamilton being a few positions behind Leclerc, because these are both drivers who we know can compete for wins if given the opportunity, and they haven't been given the opportunity.