Hamilton Admits Ferrari’s Monza Engine Fix Still Leaves Them Short
Lewis Hamilton has never been one for false modesty, and he isn’t about to start bigging up a power unit that still can’t do the job properly. Ferrari’s home-race engine upgrade, he says, is “a step forward but not the whole amount we need”. Which, translated from British understatement into plain English, means: nice try, still not good enough.
Four Tenths Down and Counting
Ferrari have used the second of their two permitted engine upgrades this season at Monza, a track that punishes anything slower in a straight line no matter how planted it is through the corners. And Ferrari’s problem all year has been exactly that: a car that can hustle through Parabolica but gets swallowed on the Curva Grande. Hamilton put a number on it.
“Every little helps. Until this point of the year, even last race, we were losing 0.4secs a lap. We have carried that deficit. This is a step forward. 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.” – Lewis Hamilton
Four tenths a lap on the straights is not a rounding error, it’s the difference between fighting for a win and fighting for the minor points. Ferrari’s home-race upgrade might close some of that gap. It won’t close all of it, and Hamilton isn’t pretending otherwise, which is refreshing given how much of the paddock treats every new part as a golden ticket.
A First That Would Mean Something
Hamilton and Charles Leclerc have a win apiece this season, but Hamilton’s sits in Barcelona, not in front of the tifosi. Winning at Monza would put him in unclaimed territory: no Ferrari driver has won there wearing red with the number 44 on the car, and Hamilton clearly knows exactly what that would mean beyond the trophy.
“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. The pressure’s high. You want to do it for the team. Many of them will come to this race. The tifosi come out in huge numbers with a passion that’s unmatched. 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.” – Lewis Hamilton
It’s the sort of quote that would sound like PR syrup from most drivers. From Hamilton, at Monza, with his mother in the paddock for the first time on a Ferrari weekend, it lands as genuinely sincere rather than scripted. He knows the story writes itself if he pulls it off. He also knows, because he just told everyone, that the engine still isn’t quite there to guarantee it.
The Antonelli Complication
Here’s the twist that actually helps Hamilton’s cause more than any engine part could. Kimi Antonelli, the championship leader and an Italian driving for an Italian marque’s biggest rival on Italian soil, will start from the back after a grid penalty for exceeding his engine allocation. Mercedes calculated Monza was the smartest race of the season to take the hit, both because a fresh unit matters most on a power circuit and because it lets them manage the rest of the pool sensibly.
Hamilton isn’t losing sleep over it either. He reckons Antonelli’s straight-line pace will drag him through the field without much drama.
“There is big gap between the top teams and the rest. 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. 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.” – Lewis Hamilton
Antonelli, for his part, sounds almost relieved to have the pressure of a home pole taken off the table.
“I am very much looking forward to this weekend despite starting from the back. 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.” – Kimi Antonelli
George Russell is facing a similar engine penalty of his own, most likely two races from now in Azerbaijan, which tells you Mercedes are treating this as a season-long logistics puzzle rather than a one-off headache.
Numbers That Actually Matter
Hamilton sits level with Russell on points, both 59 behind Antonelli in the standings, with 10 rounds left after this weekend. That gap is real and it isn’t closing on optimism alone. An engine upgrade that shaves some, not all, of a four-tenth straight-line deficit is not going to hand Hamilton the title race back on its own, and he knows it, which is presumably why he’s choosing his words carefully rather than promising the moon.
What he can promise is a proper crack at Monza, with Antonelli compromised and Ferrari’s car finally carrying a bit more straight-line muscle than it has all year. Whether that translates into a maiden Monza win for Hamilton in red remains the open question this weekend. His arrival in a Ferrari F40 on Thursday, an authentic find with 44 stamped on the engine by coincidence, already had the tifosi in raptures before a wheel had turned in anger. The car on Sunday will have to do the rest.
The session schedule for the Italian Grand Prix weekend can be checked here for your local time, with qualifying on Saturday and the race itself on Sunday at 13:00 UTC.
An Upgrade That Buys Hope, Not Certainty
Ferrari have done what they can within the rules. Hamilton has done what he always does, which is tell you exactly how far short of the mark things still are rather than dress it up. If Monza goes Ferrari’s way this weekend, it will be despite an engine that’s better, not despite one that’s finally fixed. That distinction matters, and Hamilton, to his credit, isn’t letting anyone forget it.
