In the span of 24 hours, the mood surrounding Lewis Hamilton`s first race for Ferrari on Italian soil underwent a complete transformation.
Saturday at Imola brought gloom: Charles Leclerc and Hamilton failed to reach Q3, qualifying 11th and 12th respectively. Seven other teams performed better; only Haas and Sauber didn`t manage to place either of their cars ahead of the Ferraris. Anywhere else this is bad news for Ferrari, but at a track little more than 50 miles from the Maranello factory, it`s almost unacceptable. On Saturday, Hamilton told reporters he was “devastated”.
A day later, his spirits were completely different. Hamilton finished fourth; an alternative tire strategy and several brilliant calls from the Ferrari pit wall during a late safety car period helped him climb up the order.
For Hamilton, this result and the improvement were more significant than his sprint race victory at the Chinese Grand Prix, the second round of the season.
“China was decent, but I`d say this is better,” he said on Sunday. “I`ve always loved having to fight from the back. That`s how I started as a kid, it`s always a much better feeling than starting first and finishing first. But definitely, an absolutely fantastic race. There are so many positives to take from it.”
What exactly are those positives?
“There are tons,” Hamilton continued. “First, the strategy. It was simply fantastic. They made great decisions. No mistakes there.”
“The car really helped. In China, I felt completely at one with the car, and the second time that happened was today. I felt that true synergy. I think the setup was great. I think we improved our performance a bit. We just messed up qualifying. If we had qualified well today, we would have been fighting for a podium, which we didn`t think was possible.”
This was a good recovery drive, but some perspective is needed before getting too carried away.
This was still a revealing weekend, and on pure pace, Ferrari never looked like a podium contender. Hamilton is prone to sharp mood swings depending on his most recent result, and as he said, his race had the feel-good factor of slicing through the field in the closing stages.
The safety car deployment was perfectly timed for him but turned out terrible for others. Its appearance led Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin to lament that he is “the unluckiest driver in the f—ing world.”
His teammate Leclerc`s race was also ruined by the safety car. His decision not to pit for fresh tires left him vulnerable to the attacking Alex Albon in the Williams towards the end of the race. Leclerc, the long-suffering face of the Ferrari Formula 1 team, appeared much more reserved on Sunday evening, reflecting on his Grand Prix.
“It was one of those races where you have to race with your heart and put your elbows out a bit,” Leclerc told Sky Sports F1. “I know that when it`s like this, you`re very much on the limit, sometimes a bit over. But when you`re starting P11, I mean, as a driver, I simply cannot accept the situation we are in.”
This must be a painfully familiar feeling for Leclerc. Twelve months ago, he finished behind Max Verstappen and Lando Norris on the Imola podium, but this year he left the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari 85 points behind championship leader Oscar Piastri. Ferrari is fourth in the constructors` championship, 165 points behind Piastri`s McLaren team.
It wasn`t supposed to be like this.
Ferrari entered the year fresh off the back of fighting McLaren all the way to the finish line in last year`s constructors` championship, and buoyed by Hamilton`s arrival. It was supposed to be a championship-contending car, but now 2025 feels like little more than a salvage operation. To the disappointment of everyone involved, there is still untapped potential hidden beneath the darker shade of red the car sports this year.
When asked when the SF-25 “comes alive”, Leclerc replied: “In the race, but before that – no. We don`t understand why yet.”
This only exacerbates the frustration, as last year the team seemed to have finally gained a fundamental understanding of the car`s optimal performance window. Leclerc spearheaded Ferrari`s resurgence in the second half of the season, with the team emerging from the summer break in a much more formidable state.
The key to this turnaround was how Ferrari managed to find the perfect balance — strong in qualifying, but, crucially, even stronger in races — to provide Leclerc, arguably F1`s best driver over a single lap, the ideal baseline to challenge for victory every weekend. In previous years, Ferrari`s cars were excellent in qualifying but too often faded in the race, leading to errors from the driver and pit wall (both already under immense pressure) in an attempt to compensate. Leclerc`s wins in Monza and Austin, and Carlos Sainz`s victory at the Mexico City Grand Prix, offered a tantalizing glimpse of what the team could achieve with a perfectly balanced car.
This optimal balance seems to have been lost this year. Hamilton has repeatedly referenced changes made after his sprint victory in China, which came at the cost of performance. Tire warm-up appears to be the main area the team is struggling to understand this year.
“It`s clear that we are trying to extract the best from the car on Saturday,” said Team Principal Frédéric Vasseur after the race at Imola. “The last two weekends, we haven`t improved our time on the [last tire] set in qualifying. There is a bit of frustration for us. For sure, we need to put all our effort into this.”
The tifosi can perhaps find solace in the knowledge that if a solution to the disappearing pace on Saturday can be found quickly, Ferrari might be able to turn the situation around quite dramatically.
With qualifying being a concern, the Monaco race will present a significant test. The narrow and winding Monte Carlo circuit is famous for qualifying having an outsized impact on the race — something unlikely to change, despite the newly mandated two-stop strategy introduced to improve the spectacle.
Leclerc famously broke his hometown curse at last year`s Monaco race but isn`t expecting a repeat this time.
“A very difficult weekend,” was his assessment of what to expect this weekend in the Principality. “I think Monaco exposes quite a few weaknesses of our car, so I don`t know, but there are also many things that you cannot really predict. The amount of risk you take in qualifying, the car is set up in a very different way, so I hope we will be surprised.”
Charles Leclerc (Jayce Illman/Getty Images)
Rupert Caldwell