Very few drivers will ever get to experience the feeling of walking through the gates to the Autodromo Internazionale Monza dressed in a Ferrari uniform.
Ferrari drivers exist somewhere in the realm between rock star and deity. The experience of being a member of the Scuderia tifosi at Monza is in equal parts riotous and religious.
“I still have to pinch myself,” Lewis Hamilton said on his first weekend in Monza wearing Ferrari’s famous logo.
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He’d already been given a hero’s welcome in Milan on Wednesday night, where he and Leclerc were mobbed by Ferrari fans at the iconic Piazza del Duomo.
Hamilton’s brief Ferrari career has had its high points, but bar his sprint pole and victory in China, they’ve mostly come off the track.
While there have been some signs through the middle of the year that he’s finding his feet, they’ve been patchy and inconsistent.
Last weekend in Zandvoort was a case in point. He was a close match for Leclerc in qualifying but then uncharacteristically crashed out of the race in the drizzle.
MONZA, ITALY – SEPTEMBER 04: Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain and Scuderia Ferrari speaks in the Drivers Press Conference during previews ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Italy at Autodromo Nazionale Monza on September 04, 2025 in Monza, Italy. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images
“It’s been an emotional rollercoaster,” he said. “Did I expect it to be as volatile in terms of feeling? No. But that’s life. Even though we had a difficult Sunday, we’re coming out on the brighter end of the tunnel.
“I’m trying to be present and enjoy every moment, because this half of the season has gone by really quick. It’s my first half a season with this team and there’s obviously a long way to go. I don’t want to miss any of these special moments.
“My first Monza in Ferrari red. When I leave the garage [on Friday], it’s going to be incredibly special coming onto this circuit.
“I reflect on when I was a kid watching Michael [Schumacher] winning here. Now I get to have that experience of being on the receiving end of the tifosi.
“I want to give them absolutely everything this weekend, to get the best result for them because the passion and the support they’ve given me and this team is like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
Considering the underwhelming season Ferrari has had, even just a competitive showing would surely please the fans.
Because while Monza is all about Ferrari, this season Formula 1 is all about McLaren.
And after Oscar Piastri won last weekend’s race after Lando Norris retired from second with an engine issue, the championship is entering a new an unexpected chapter.
PIT TALK PODCAST: Oscar Piastri controlled the Dutch Grand Prix for a deserved victory but lucked into a massive points swing when Lando Norris retired from second place with engine trouble. Now 34 points up the road, is it Piastri’s championship to lose?
McLAREN REVEALS CAUSE OF ENGINE FAILURE — BUT PENALTY ODDS ARE UNCERTAIN
The verdict is in on the power unit that cost Norris 18 points at the Dutch Grand Prix and put him on the back foot in the championship race.
What happens next, however, is still to be determined.
McLaren knew already on Sunday night that the failed part was on its side of the car-engine equation rather than a component supplied by Mercedes as part of the power unit, though it couldn’t say specifically what had happened.
The team has since identified the problem to be an engine oil line that failed.
That failed line caused the oil leak that Norris could smell from the cockpit.
The car’s sensors then detected the leak too and immediately shut down the power unit in a bid to avoid damaging the internal combustion engine.
The team has improved the affected oil line in both cars this weekend, making it stronger to avoid a repeat.
That much is clear. What is still unknown is whether the engine took any damage in those moments of reduced oil flow.
The affected power unit has been sent back to Mercedes’s engine headquarters in Brixworth in the UK for analysis. McLaren is expected to know more next week.
The good news is that the answer won’t affect Norris this weekend anyway.
Monza’s long straights mean this is a power-sensitive circuit. Very few drivers still have fresh engines left in their allocation at this stage of the season, but every team will have planned their power unit rotation program such that they will have a motor with relatively low mileage and therefore a power output close to its original peak for this weekend.
The engine used in Zandvoort — which isn’t a power-dependent track — was never going to be used this weekend anyway.
However, the bad news is that Norris could still be told his engine can’t be used again.
Obviously that’s bad in the first instance, but it’s also bad given Monza could have been one of the tracks at which he’d have preferred to have taken the ensuing penalty for installing a fresh motor. The kilowatt boost he could’ve got from a new power unit might have made overtaking at this straight-dominated track easier, helping him to limit the damage.
Instead he might be forced to make that decision at some other track later in the year where passing is harder.
“Of course it’s frustrating,” Norris said, per Autosport of his lost points. “But at the same time the reason makes it pretty easy to just move on from it.
“If it was something I did, I’d probably be still kicking myself or I’d still be pretty down about it. But I think the fact it had nothing to do with me made it pretty easy just to go, ‘Well, that’s life’.
“It’s surprisingly easy probably for myself to put it behind and look ahead to this weekend. That’s what I’m excited for.”
Ice cool Piastri ‘in control’ after win | 01:29
NORRIS LAMENTS McLAREN DOMINATION IN TITLE CHASE
A 34-points gap with nine rounds to go is still far from insurmountable. It wouldn’t even rank among the top 10 greatest comebacks in the history of the sport.
Norris’s destiny is still in his hands. He can win the championship without needing other results to work in his favour.
But there’s an irony in the fact that McLaren’s domination could make things harder for him by making big points swings more difficult.
A bad weekend for Norris and Piastri is still likely to result in a second-place finish.
“It would certainly make my life easier if there were some more drivers in between every now and then,” he said, per ESPN.
“The thing is, we’re so dominant as a team. That almost makes my life harder, so that’s really the most frustrating part of it all.
“I still like to think may the best man win and if that’s the case at the end of the season, then I’ll respect that.”
The Briton, however, said he wasn’t hoping for similar bad luck to befall his teammate.
“No, because in the end, if he’s done a better job, I give credit to him and I say he’s done a better job. That’s just how I am,” he said.
“I don’t wish it, I just wish that I can find that last little bit, that I can still win the championship without anything happening and that’s the way I wish to do it.”
Piastri, though, was far less convinced of the comfort of his position.
ZANDVOORT, NETHERLANDS – AUGUST 31: Oscar Piastri of Australia driving the (81) McLaren MCL39 Mercedes leads Lando Norris of Great Britain driving the (4) McLaren MCL39 Mercedes on track during the F1 Grand Prix of Netherlands at Circuit Zandvoort on August 31, 2025 in Zandvoort, Netherlands. (Photo by Joe Portlock/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images
“I’ve had a much bigger gap than this [in the junior series] and had it pretty much erased before the final round,” he said, per the BBC. “It’s still far too early to be kind of calculating and settling for positions that aren’t first.
“For me the approach is still exactly the same, and that won’t change until the gap is pretty significantly bigger or the amount of races is significantly smaller.
“It’s a bit more difficult now, but I don’t expect much to change. I think we’ll race each other the same way. I think the amount of risk taking will be the same.
“We’re both trying to be as fast as we can. It’s not like we’ve been holding anything back from that side of things. So I don’t expect anything to change.”
It’s the mindset Piastri must take. His give-nothing, workmanlike approach to the season has paid him back handsomely — it shouldn’t be forgotten that he was set to take a 16-point lead into this weekend before Norris retired from second place.
He had the Dutch Grand Prix under total control, which was already a significant win at a track his teammate dominated the previous season.
To even contemplate easing back or playing a numbers game could be fatal to his championship chances.
Piastri has a chance to press his advantage, and you’d expect nothing other than for him to take it.
‘Rookie mistake’ costs Leclerc his race | 01:23
PIASTRI TO GIVE UP CAR IN FP1 TO McLAREN JUNIOR
Piastri’s attempt to score back-to-back wins — and to avenge last year’s surprise defeat to Charles Leclerc — will take an immediate minor blow, however, when he hands over his car to McLaren development driver Alex Dunne.
Each team is required the regulations to field a rookie in four practice sessions, two per car.
Dunne has already had one outing when he commandeered Norris’s car in Austria.
Norris skipping FP1 had no material impact on his performance that weekend. He topped the two remaining practice sessions, dominated qualifying and controlled the race.
While Monza is in the Piastri column, the Australian doesn’t have quite the same record of control at the Italian circuit as Norris has enjoyed in Austria.
With Norris sure to approach the weekend with all guns blazing, Piastri will have his work cut out for him to make up for lost time.
For Dunne, though, this is a potentially significant opportunity.
He was immensely impressive on his first outing at the Red Bull Ring. After some time spent evaluating McLaren’s latest upgrades, he bolted on a set of softs to set a stunning lap good enough for fourth in the order just 0.069 seconds behind Piastri.
Team boss Andrea Stella said his work during the session was “quite diligent and impressive”.
“Then he had also the chance to show some speed, and — no surprise — he’s a fast driver,” Stella said.
Rising star Alex Dunne will get a drive in the McLaren car this year.Source: Getty Images
He was running with a lighter fuel load and set his time near the end of the hour, when the track was fastest, but it wasn’t just the time that impressed so much as how quickly he got himself comfortable on the big stage.
He’s been rapid in his first Formula 2 season and led the championship for a period earlier in the year before a combination of technical penalties and driver mistakes dropped him off the head of the table. He’s a nonetheless commendable fifth in the standings and only 30 points off top stop.
If he can impress again in practice, it’ll only cement the Irishman as an F1 candidate.
Further down the gird, Paul Aron will take over from Franco Colapinto in FP1 in another potentially significant moment.
Faith in Colapinto has waned over the season, and without an obvious experienced alternative, Aron looms as his potential replacement should the team decide to pull the trigger.
Colapinto was praised for his strongest weekend yet in the Netherlands — he finished 11th and with a better managed race could have scored his first points — but you’d never want to second-guess Alpine’s thinking on driver management.
‘Most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen!’ | 01:14
ANDREA KIMI ANTONELLI RETURNS TO THE SCENE OF THE CRIME
This time last year the world got its first glimpse at Andrea Kimi Antonelli in a Formula 1 car.
By then Antonelli had become seriously hyped for his rapid and glittering rise through the junior ranks, with some regarding him as the sport’s next generational talent.
He completed one lap in his Mercedes during FP1 in Monza and then promptly embedded himself in the barriers in a whopping 52g crash.
Later that weekend he was confirmed as Hamilton’s replacement at the team for 2025.
It was hardly the ideal curtain-raiser, but Mercedes’s belief in the Italian was unshakeable.
One year on and we can take stock on how well founded that belief is.
The season started well. Despite being eliminated from qualifying in Q1 in Australia, in treacherously difficult conditions on Sunday he finished a fantastic fourth.
His trajectory looked smooth and positive from there, and it was assumed that he’d take another step when the sport returned to Europe, to tracks he knew well.
Instead things took a turn for the worse.
Mercedes brought an upgrade — since rolled back — that made it much more difficult for to extract pace from the car.
He’s scored just one point from the eight European rounds so far — though bizarrely those races were punctuated by his maiden podium in Canada.
So it’s fair to say his first season so far, a year since signing is contract, has been a mixed bag.
But Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said it was exactly what he’d expected.
“When we made it clear last year in Monza that we would give him the opportunity, we were also saying that we would give him a year of learning,” Wolff said, per ESPN.
“And then there would be moments where we’d tear our hair out and there would be other moments of brilliance.
“So, up and downs, but I was absolutely expecting that from this season and every one of those days is going to be a learning for next year.”
The team has also said that the psychological pain from Antonelli’s crash in Monza this time last year has taken time to heal, with work being done to build up the Italian’s confidence.
This week might be a useful test, then, of how much work has been completed — and of how much is still to be done.