Ferrari's Monza Challenge: Hamilton Eyes First Victory in Red
Lewis Hamilton can feel it. Not quite in his hands yet, but close enough to taste.
Ferrari arrive at Monza with a new engine in the back of the SF-24 and a familiar burden on their shoulders: win at home, in front of the tifosi, or explain why not. Hamilton, who has spent his first year in red juggling nostalgia, expectation and a title fight he is not quite leading, knows exactly what this weekend represents.
“It’s a step forward,” he said of Ferrari’s upgraded power unit. “It is not the whole amount we need but we knew that was the case. I strongly believe we have what it takes to win.”
Ferrari sharpen their weapon for home soil
Ferrari have chosen their moment carefully. Monza is the temple of speed, the team’s spiritual home and the most unforgiving lie detector on the calendar. You are either fast here or you are exposed.
On balance, Ferrari have built the quickest car through the corners this season, but they have been dragged back on the straights. Hamilton did not sugar-coat the deficit.
“Until this point of the year, even last race, we were losing 0.4secs a lap on the straights. We have carried that deficit.”
This new engine is the second and final upgrade Ferrari are allowed this year. It is designed to claw back enough straight-line performance to let their cornering strength tell, particularly through the Lesmos and Ascari, where they have often looked imperious.
Every fraction matters now. Hamilton trails championship leader Kimi Antonelli by 59 points. Both he and Charles Leclerc have a single win to their names this season. Monza offers a rare alignment of factors: Ferrari stronger in the corners, a power boost on the straights, and the title leader starting from the back.
The opportunity is obvious. So is the pressure.
“To win this weekend, the whole collective has to come together. Everything has to flow from the beginning,” Hamilton said. “There is a first ahead of me, in the sense of if I was to win I go into new territory winning for the first time in Ferrari at Monza. It would be phenomenal.”
Monza, the tifosi and a different kind of pressure
Hamilton has won almost everywhere, in almost everything. But not yet here in red. That alone changes the air around Ferrari’s garage.
“The pressure’s high. You want to do it for the team,” he admitted. “Many of them will come to this race. The tifosi come out in huge numbers with a passion that's unmatched.”
There is a personal layer too. “And my mum's here. I don't think she's been to Monza, and certainly not with Ferrari. I wanted her to experience this and bring any lucky dust she can bring.”
Ferrari live with this kind of scrutiny every year at Monza. But this time, the script has an extra twist: the man leading the championship, Antonelli, will not be part of the fight at the front on Saturday. At least not at the start.
Antonelli takes his hit – and eyes a charge
Mercedes have bitten the bullet. Reliability problems earlier in the season forced Antonelli over his allocation of four engines, making a grid penalty inevitable. They chose Monza for the hit, calculating that a fresh power unit on a track dominated by long straights gives them the best chance to limit the damage and reset their engine pool for the run-in.
Antonelli will start from the back. The prospect hardly fazes him.
“I am very much looking forward to this weekend despite starting from the back,” he said. “I will be able to enjoy it more than I did previously and hopefully we will still be able to have a good race.
“In some ways it helps to release pressure, although I would very much rather fight for pole and start at the front.”
The Italian knows what his car can do, and he knows Monza offers chances others do not. “There are other tracks where it is possible to overtake but this one is very energy starved and there are a lot of places where you can race differently and it gives us the best chance to climb through the field.”
Hamilton, fully aware of the threat, did not pretend otherwise.
“Kimi will start from the back but with the power he has, and the performance he has, he should slide through that pack pretty easy and it's probably why they chose this race to do that,” he said. “So achieving eighth or sixth should be relatively easy. We have to focus on maximising our weekend and try and take the energy from the tifosi to hopefully push us to the front.”
Mercedes will hand team-mate George Russell a similar penalty later, most likely in Azerbaijan. For now, all eyes are on how far Antonelli can come from the tail of the field – and how many points he can deny Ferrari on their own ground.
An “energy-starved” Monza and a slipstream chess match
This is not the Monza of old, where pure horsepower and bravery under braking told the whole story. The current hybrid era has turned energy management into a dark art, and this weekend will push that to the limit.
Antonelli described Monza as “very energy starved” – a circuit where the long straights drain the battery and offer little chance to recharge under braking. That means the hybrid systems will hit their deployment ceiling early and then flat-line, leaving drivers to hang on in the slipstream.
He expects speed to level off on the straights rather than drop dramatically, but the effect will still be felt. Drivers are bracing for a frustrating weekend, with traffic, towing games and positioning likely to dominate qualifying. Slipstreaming will not just be a bonus; it will be a weapon.
Teams will choreograph runs. Team-mates will argue over who tows whom. One mistimed lap could throw a title contender into the midfield mess, where Antonelli will be trying to carve his way through.
Amid all that, Ferrari have to be clean. No strategic missteps. No scruffy laps. No mechanical gremlins.
Hamilton knows what is at stake. A new engine, a home crowd, a title leader starting last and a chance to write his first Monza chapter in red.
If Ferrari cannot make this one count, when will they?
