Were there any doubt of the import in Lewis Hamilton having joined Ferrari, it was summarily dismissed in the shadow of the Duomo di Milano on the Wednesday before this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix. There, on the Piazzetta Reale, fans had gathered in a vast throng since the early morning to greet Hamilton as he prepares for his debut with Ferrari at their home race.
The Piazzetta Reale – Royal Square – was an entirely apt locale as in Monza this weekend Hamilton and teammate Charles Leclerc are as close as any F1 drivers come to being considered royalty. The vociferous vocal acclaim that greeted them had begun 15 minutes before they appeared and all but drowned out attempts at interviews, according to Corriere della Sera.
“They sign autographs. It takes them more than five minutes to walk the 30 metres that separate them from the entrance to the Royal Palace,” reports the paper. “Every inch they walk, somebody stops them. Then they climb on to the balcony overlooking the square for the first greeting to the tifosi of the weekend. The party begins.”
Ferrari, in Italy, at their home race, is an entirely different ball game. Were passion and unwavering belief enough, the Scuderia would be unbeatable this weekend at Monza, the tifosi would simply will them home. Yet as these fans have learned in the painful years since the Scuderia last won the drivers’ title in 2007, it is not sufficient. Yet here they are once more in the beautiful tree-lined parkland of the Parco di Monza again, eyes alight with hope and anticipation.
Last year, hugely against the odds, they were rewarded. Ferrari had been almost one second off the pole pace at the previous round in Zandvoort, yet Leclerc and the team pulled off the most remarkable coup with a one-stop strategy to grab a win in Monza.
Similar is not expected this year, although Ferrari did manage to reward the faithful with Hamilton and Leclerc taking the top spots in first practice, perhaps flattering to deceive on low fuel, because all season Ferrari have been off the pace and Hamilton in particular is struggling as he adapts to a new team and car.
It has been hard, at times volatile, as even he conceded this weekend in Monza, where he will take a five-place grid penalty from an infraction in Zandvoort but was at least honest about how both sides had perhaps been taken aback by the work their partnership required.
“Living the dream, moving to race with Ferrari I had the whole of last year to think about it and try to prepare but there are still things you couldn’t foresee,” he said. “There’s been a lot of adjustment both from my side and the team. They’ve really moved heaven and earth to accommodate me. Obviously, there are cultural differences.
“Fred [Vasseur, team principal] made a comment that perhaps they underestimated me joining the team and the year we’ve been faced with in terms of the problems with the car.”
It had been, Hamilton said, an “emotional rollercoaster” with no sign of letting up, which is also perhaps part and parcel of being Ferrari, the team with the most storied, colourful and mercurial history.
Indeed, when Hamilton and Leclerc appeared in Milan they were bedecked in blue shirts as part of the tribute to Niki Lauda claiming the championship for Ferrari at Monza in 1975, ending an 11-year drought for the team. Their cars, similarly, will run in the 1975-themed livery of Lauda’s 312T.
It will be the same seventies shade of red and with the distinctive, white engine cover of Lauda’s and a silver rear wing mimicking the unadorned aluminium of 1975, before carbon fibre became de rigueur.
Lauda worked with Hamilton extensively at his previous team Mercedes where the pair became close friends before the Austrian’s death in 2019, lending this weekend even more significance for the British driver.
“I got to celebrate Niki at Mercedes, I got to celebrate winning with him, winning championships with him, and then to be able to come to Ferrari and then also be able to celebrate him here is really, really cool because his legacy continues to live on,” he said.
“I know right now what he would be saying to me nowadays and it’s always in the back of my mind. When I didn’t do well he would always say ‘give them hell’, but [instead of hell] he would always say the word ‘arseholes’.”
“At the beginning, I never understood. ‘What do you mean? You mean, give them hell?’. He was like, ‘no, give them arseholes’. He was just such a fighter.
Lauda’s title that season, his first, was indeed a triumph. But the greatest demonstration of his fighting spirit came a year later when, just 40 days after the accident which had so nearly killed him at the Nurburgring, the Austrian defied every expectation by climbing back into the Ferrari at Monza. Few had believed he would ever even drive again, yet while in enormous pain, with the bandages that covered his extensive burns blood-soaked, Lauda demonstrated a bravery and determination that is unmatched. His fourth place in the race a triumph against all the odds.
It was one of the reasons he was so respected and proved inspiring to so many drivers, including Hamilton, who has enjoyed such an enthusiastic reception from the tifosi this weekend. But much as they want a win, they also adore a fighter, a driver willing to give his all in the rosso corsa and here Hamilton too surely fits the bill. A new Il Leone in the making perhaps, convinced that every setback is moving him onward and upward.
“Honestly, the harder it is the better it can make you,” he observed going into the weekend. “This year has been tough for everyone in the team, but it prepares us for better days. We’ll be stronger having gone through this tough first six months.”
In second practice Ferrari maintained a decent show, with Leclerc second to McLaren’s Lando Norris, who is looking to come back after the disappointment of retiring in Zandvoort that has left him 34 points adrift of teammate and championship leader, Oscar Piastri. The Australian was fourth in second practice behind the Williams of Carlos Sainz, with Hamilton fifth in front of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
