The partisan Italian Grand Prix crowd will have divided loyalties this season.
Ordinarily there’s no doubt about the allegiances of the famous Monza tifosi. Decked out in Italian racing red and speckled with Modena yellow, they create an intense and suffocating pro-Ferrari atmosphere unrivalled by the fans of any other nation.
Ferrari is making a fist of the championship this year. It’s won two of the last six races, equal with Mercedes and McLaren, to sit second in the championship, 87 points off the lead. Lewis Hamilton is third in the drivers standings, equal with George Russell, and 59 points off top spot.
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With upgrades on their way this weekend, how Ferrari does at its home race could be indicative of its odds of closing those gaps and winning its first drivers title since 2008 or first constructors championship since 2007.
But a percentage of those usually loyal tifosi may be hoping those margins don’t shrink too much.
The man Hamilton — and Russell, Lando Norris and maybe even Charles Leclerc — is chasing is Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
Antonelli, who celebrated his 20th birthday just last week, is Italy’s greatest hope of ending a national shame for the proud racing nation.
It’s been exactly 60 years since, precisely to the day, since an Italian last won their home grand prix. Ludovico Scarfiotti was the last man to do it, winning the 1966 event from second on the grid — and in a Ferrari.
The bigger picture paints an even longer, more meaningful drought.
Not since 1953 has an Italian won the drivers world championship. Alberto Ascari was the last, winning the title in 1952 and 1953; the only other is Giuseppe Farina, the inaugural world champion in 1950.
It’s been 72 years since Italy claimed the drivers champion, and Antonelli is well positioned to prevent that streak from stretching into a 73rd year.
So you can understand why Italian fans might feel conflicted this weekend as they stream into Autodromo Nazionale Monza, around 30 km north of Milan.
History is on the line.
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THE ‘KICK UP THE BUTT’ THAT MADE A CHAMPIONSHIP LEADER
Antonelli was asked in July, just before the halfway mark of the season, whether he or five-time grand slam champion Jannik Sinner was more popular in Italy.
“More famous in Italy is Charles,” he laughed, pointing to the Ferrari driver sitting next to him.
Monegasque Leclerc has long been known by the nickname Il Predestinato — literally ‘the predestined one’ — in the Italian media and among Ferrari fans in general. A product of the Italian team’s junior program, he cemented his reputation with a gutsy victory at the 2019 Italian Grand Prix after seeing off future teammate Lewis Hamilton.
But Leclerc’s title-winning destiny has been held ransom by a string of underwhelming Ferrari cars. Italy’s adopted son has won just nine times from 162 Ferrari starts — the same as Oscar Piastri’s victory tally from half as many races — for a best season result of a distant second in the championship.
Ironically the man best placed to make good on that promise comes from a team that’s spent most of the last decade beating Leclerc and his Ferrari team.
Mercedes spied Antonelli’s potential before his 12th birthday, signing him to a junior contract while he was still dominating the kart racing scene.
It had such faith in his speed that he was promoted directly from Formula 4 to Formula 2 and, halfway through the latter, given his first Formula 1 contract to replace Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes in 2025.
It was an almost personal gamble by team boss Toto Wolff, and it nearly came off the rails.
Antonelli was impressive early in the season, with regular scores and even a sprint pole in Miami. It raised expectations for his performance in Europe, at tracks that would be better known to him.
Instead he floundered, scoring just three points in nine rounds — bizarrely punctuated by a maiden podium in Canada.
Part of his problem was a badly aimed Mercedes suspension upgrade that threw him badly off his rhythm, but some of it was between the ears too.
“I let the pressure kind of destroy me,” he told the Significant Figures podcast. “I felt like I was letting down so many people who had believed in me — especially Toto, because he was the main one who took the decision.
“I didn’t feel good in that period, I wasn’t doing well, but then I had a big meeting with the team after the European season, and it kind of allowed me to reset and just start again.”
At the time he described it as a “kick in the butt” that helped him to snap out of his funk.
“It also made me learn a lot about myself, not only as a driver but as a person as well,” he continued.
“I’ve learned about how my body responds to those moments, how my brain responds, what helps me get back into the right focus, the right mindset … what helps me to stay 100 per cent in terms of energy during the whole weekend, so how to manage myself with events, obviously the driving and everything.
“I learned a lot about myself, and how as well to respond to difficult moments.
“I felt the learning curve was incredible — it felt like doing three years at once, and it was overwhelming, physically, mentally, because I’ve had so many new experiences as well.”
Now he talks about revelling in the moment rather than stewing in the pressure.
“When you understand that you also have to enjoy as well, it makes the difference,” he told the F1 website.
“It helps you to … I feel like at least in my case … drive more relaxed, enjoy more the driving, feel more the car, and then the performance just comes much easier.
“Instead of when you’re like chasing it and you’re driving tense, it’s a big difference.
“Trying to be yourself and always focusing on the goal and always also [trying] to see the positive, even in the bad situation — even when something goes bad, there’s always a positive. That can be found and that can help you to grow.”
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THE ENGINE GAME
A 59-point lead with, officially, 11 rounds remaining — though likely only 10 — puts Antonelli in a commanding position.
That’s especially the case when no one driver has emerged as his challenger.
On paper teammate Russell should be that driver. With six seasons more experience under his belt, including three as a victory contender with Mercedes, he was the preseason championship favourite for a reason.
But luck derailed the Briton early, and he’s struggled to match Antonelli for pace ever since, ill at ease in the 2026 car that appears to have muted some of his strengths.
Hamilton instead rose, and for four of the last seven rounds sat an unlikely second in the championship. Reliability has been his strength, the seven-time champion the only driver to have completed every racing lap this season.
But Ferrari has been his weakness. The car wasn’t close to winning races in the opening six rounds, and though he stormed to top spot in Barcelona, execution and a lack of straight-line speed — more the former than the latter — have cost him and the team chances to meaningfully eat into their deficits.
This weekend, though, that narrative may flip.
Antonelli will be fitted with a fresh engine, but he will pay the price for earlier unreliability and be forced to start the grand prix from the back of the grid.
“It’s disappointing for him and for the fans who want to see him fighting from the front in his home race,” team boss Wolff said. “But our sport doesn’t reward sentiment.
“When you make decisions that benefit the championship campaign, sometimes you pay a short-term price.
“The objective now is straightforward: recover as many places as possible and maximise the points.”
Monza has been chosen because the extra grunt of a new engine will help Antonelli to make up places, but it’s also the right time to add another motor to his pool to ensure he can make it to the end of the season without needing another penalty.
“It’s my home race and all that kind of stuff, but I think it’s the best race to do so,” Antonelli said. “I think it still will give me a chance to do a great result and bring home good points.”
Both Ferrari drivers will be fitted with fresh engines too, but both have headroom in their allowances for the year to take them without penalties.
But these aren’t just fresh engines. They’re upgraded ones.
Ferrari is pulling the trigger on its second of two permissible engine updates this season, and this one is focused on its lacking internal combustion engine.
Reports in the Italian media suggest the team is hoping to halve the estimated 22 kW power gap to Mercedes while also improving its energy recovery characteristics.
This upgrade is a step in the bigger changes planned for next season, when Ferrari is allowed another two power unit revisions under the sport’s concession rules.
“It represents a step in the right direction, and as we know, this year is very much about marginal gains,” Ferrari principal Frédéric Vasseur said. “Monza is a demanding circuit and the field is extremely close, and our priority will be to execute every aspect of the weekend as well as possible, from Friday onwards.
“We want to draw extra motivation from the passion of our home crowd and give our tifosi a strong weekend.”
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FERRARI’S TITLE PUSH
The significance of Ferrari’s engine upgrade should not be underestimated. Engine performance is the single biggest deficit between it and Mercedes, and the German marque is unlikely to be in a position to respond despite having one upgrade concession of its own — the team is at the limit of engine parts for the year and appeared less prepared to be given a concession in the first place.
It’s no exaggeration to say how Ferrari does this weekend will be indicative of the reality of its championship hopes.
But it won’t be about the result. Similar to Antonelli facing a lower performance ceiling due to his penalty, Ferrari is expecting a tough weekend.
The engine upgrade will shrink its deficit on straight-line performance but not close it entirely. It still expects to be relatively weak in this area — and straight-line performance is pretty much the only kind of performance that counts at Monza.
The Temple of Speed is mostly straight lines, with only chicanes and three medium-speed corners to break them up.
While it’s true that slow-speed performance has been a Ferrari strength this year, this track is ‘energy starved’ in the parlance of 2026 engines — that is, the engines need way more electrical power than they can get through recharging.
It means every car will effectively run out of power long before the end of every straight.
The more efficient the hybrid components — linked but not directly to combustion power — the quicker the lap time.
Mercedes still has Russell in the fight at the front with the class-leading power unit.
With its old-spec engine, Ferrari would be locked out of the victory battle. It doesn’t expect that door to open wide this weekend, but if it’s even somewhat ajar, that could mean a great deal for the more conventional tracks still to come this year.
That’s especially true given the team intends to continue bringing car upgrades for the rest of the season — as opposed to Mercedes, which believes it has only one big upgrade left in the tank before it runs out of budget.
“The strategy is that we will continue to push until the end,” Vasseur told Autosport. “We have a plan. We have no issue with the cost cap; we are following the plan and will continue like this.”
A Ferrari victory would be an obviously popular result for the home crowd given the tempered expectations.
An Antonelli victory — or even a podium — would be similarly feted given where he’s set to start.
But the bigger picture for both is where they end up at the last weekend of the season in December.
History will be made for Italy no matter the outcome.