There\u2019s an added air of excitement among the passionate, red-clad tifosi at the Italian Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton is preparing to make his Monza debut in a Ferrari.<\/p>\n
It will be Hamilton\u2019s 19th race at the high-speed Italian track, but his first in red.<\/p>\n
The seven-time world champion has stood on the iconic Monza podium eight times, five of those after winning the Italian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
But Hamilton \u2014 who hasn\u2019t finished higher than fourth in a difficult first year with the Italian Scuderia \u2014 is not thinking about what it would be like to do so clad in Ferrari red.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t (thought about it), simply because I\u2019ve been on the podium plenty of times here, so I know what it\u2019s like to be up there,\u201d Hamilton said. \u201cI\u2019ve seen how it\u2019s been for other Ferrari drivers, and anything I try to imagine will be far from what that feeling could be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamilton will have to serve a five-place grid penalty at Sunday\u2019s race as Ferrari looks to rebound from a disastrous Dutch Grand Prix that saw both the British driver and teammate Charles Leclerc crash out in separate incidents.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still obviously in my first year with the team, and so every weekend is the first time driving this car at that track,\u201d Hamilton said. \u201cI think Ferrari\u2019s journey has gone pretty well in the past years. Obviously, they won here last year with a great strategy and a great drive from Charles.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain arrives at the Monza racetrack, in Monza, Italy, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. Credit: AP\/Luca Bruno<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really keen to see how the car works here. We\u2019re definitely learning from weekend to weekend, loads of positives to take from the last, so I think we just have to keep building on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Title fight<\/p>\n
While the red of Ferrari will dominate the grandstands, two papaya-colored cars will take center stage in the title fight.<\/p>\n
McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are battling each other for what would be a first Formula 1 title for either.<\/p>\n
Norris saw his title chances diminish dramatically at last weekend\u2019s Dutch Grand Prix as his McLaren broke down while he was chasing Piastri, who went on to win the race and extend his lead in the drivers\u2019 championship to 34 points.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain, right, and his teammate Charles Leclerc of Monaco, wave to fans from a balcony on the occasion of a sponsor event in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025. The Formula one race will be held on Sunday. Credit: AP\/Luca Bruno<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think much will change,\u201d Piastri said. \u201cHe\u2019s certainly not out of the fight. Yes, it\u2019s a bit more difficult now, but I don\u2019t expect much to change, I think we\u2019ll race each other the same way, I think the amount of risks we\u2019re taking will be the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re both trying to drive as fast as we can, it\u2019s not like we\u2019ve been holding anything back from that side of things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Radical changes<\/p>\n
F1 chief executive Stefano Domenicali recently suggested radical changes could be made to race weekends to attract younger audiences.<\/p>\n
The most drastic of those could be the shortening of the actual races.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will be on the other side, I will be in front of the TV when that happens,\u201d 44-year-old Fernando Alonso said. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a problem with the sport. Also, football matches are a little bit long \u2026 and no one is talking about having 60-minute football matches or something like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s a problem of society and the kids, but not the sport. So probably it\u2019s not needed, the change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Domenicali said that packing the calendar with more sprint races could also be an option and claimed that most drivers are in favor with even four-time champion Max Verstappen, who has been among the most volubly critical of the sprint format, coming round to the idea.<\/p>\n
However, Verstappen said on Thursday that his mindset hadn\u2019t really changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean you all know what I think about sprint races,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the length of the race I think it\u2019s fine. Sometimes it\u2019s one and a half hours, sometimes close to two. In other sports as well, sometimes you have an exciting game, sometimes absolutely boring and you fall asleep.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, I see the positive (about sprint races) \u2014 people are making more money \u2026 But F1 has been like this since the 50s. I understand that sports evolve and stuff like that, but we shouldn\u2019t go too crazy. I think the sprint race is already, from my side, crazy enough.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s an added air of excitement among the passionate, red-clad tifosi at the Italian Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85182,85,85183],"class_list":{"0":"post-120603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-motor-racing","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-wires-bot"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}