Ferrari: Lewis Hamilton Unhappy at Monza

Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton commented with some frustration on his fifth-place finish in free practice for the Monza Grand Prix, nearly half a second behind leader George Russell. The Mercedes cars currently seem out of reach for the seven-time world champion.

“Straight-line speed is a major issue. Just look at the telemetry—I was losing something like 6-tenths to George on the straights alone. We need to work on that. And then there’s the setup: it was really, really hard to get the best time out of the car. For some reason, it wasn’t easy to drive in FP2.”

The British driver warned the team that a lot of work will be needed: “We’ll assess whether it’s possible to improve the car. We need to figure out what’s causing this shortfall on the straights—whether it might be related to deployment. The engine, however, is an improvement, and I’m grateful for the work done by the guys at the factory. Our rivals may have less aerodynamic drag on the straights; we’ll look into that.”

Team principal Frederic Vasseur commented on the practice sessions: “I think that between sessions we’re all using different fuel loads and engine modes, and it’s very difficult to interpret—even for us. We just need to focus on ourselves and try to get the most out of it. We should have some sort of convergence in our approach for FP3, but we’ll see. Sunday is still a long way off. It seems there are several options in terms of energy management for race pace.”

On slipstreaming in qualifying: “I don’t think so; we have two cars, which is an advantage, and I want to make the most of both cars. We want to get both cars on the front rows. Of course, if we had a car that had to start from the back, we’d use it to help the other one qualify further up, like Hadjar did with Max at Spa. It’s a smart move, but I prefer to have two cars up front.”