Just 24 hours before the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola, disappointment hung heavy in the air around Ferrari and its drivers. After hopes that upgrades would boost performance, Ferrari endured their worst qualifying result of the season, with both drivers failing to reach Q3. Yet, Sunday ended with the raucous Tifosi thrilled as their home team scratched back thanks to seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton.
The script flipped, delivering a thrilling race performance that injected much-needed optimism into the Scuderia camp.
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Lewis Hamilton finally felt one with his Ferrari at Imola
“I don’t remember the last time I had a race like that moving forward,” Lewis Hamilton said after the race. “I’m sure there was one last year, but this was different because I’m in the red car (Ferrari). To finally have that connection, that synergy with the car, was a really great feeling.”
Lewis Hamilton put on a driving clinic, fighting back through the field from his lowly grid position. Benefitting from an offset strategy, starting on the hard tire, and then the timing of two safety cars, Hamilton could run long and gain track position. With fresh medium tires for the final restart, he climbed from seventh to finish fourth, equalling his best grand prix result of the year and finishing ahead of teammate Charles Leclerc, who was sixth.
Hamilton’s race engineer, Riccardo Adami, described Hamilton’s overtakes on Sunday as “explosive.” The team felt better than his earlier sprint race win in China because he was fighting through the field, reminiscent of his karting days.
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Performance in front of Italian fans made the result sweeter for Hamilton
The experience of racing in Italy as a Ferrari driver for the first time was also a highlight. Hamilton savoured being in front of the “sea of red” Tifosi, drawing inspiration from seeing Ayrton Senna’s memorial during the drivers’ parade. He felt a strong connection with the fans, comparing it to watching Michael Schumacher race for Ferrari as a child.
Hamilton believes this performance is a sign of “more to come” from Ferrari.
Over team radio after the race, he said, “If we can get that qualifying better and we can race like that, then we’ll be winning.”
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Ferrari leaves Italy feeling good, but not all is well
Although the feelings around the Scuderia were understandably high, as any F1 follower will tell you, qualifying pace is a truer indicator of the car’s state. Still, Hamilton remains hopeful they can unlock the potential in qualifying. He credited the car setup and the pit strategy for making it possible for him to make his run in the second half of the race.
“I really don’t know how Monaco will go,” Hamilton said. “Our car is generally good in high speed, OK in medium and maybe not as strong as the others in low speed. And obviously, the next race is all low. So we’ve got to see how we can try and pull some more out of it next week.”
The challenge now shifts to Monaco. Hamilton acknowledges that the focus needs to be on getting the tires working for a single lap in qualifying. Teammate Charles Leclerc is less optimistic, fearing that Ferrari’s weakness in slow-speed corners could make Monaco a challenging weekend. The Monégasque driver believes the race exposes weaknesses and the team needs to understand the qualifying issue slowing them down on Saturdays.
“Monaco is exposing quite a few weaknesses of our car,” Leclerc said. “I don’t think there’s any silver bullet to the situation we are in.”
While Imola provided a much-needed morale boost and a glimpse of the potential when things click, the low-speed demands of Monaco next weekend present a different test. For Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton to truly build momentum and chase those elusive wins, they must find a way to carry this race pace and car feel into Saturday qualifying, starting on the unforgiving streets of the principality. The hope is there, but the work is far from over.
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