Lewis Hamilton was left in awe by the crowds at the Italian Grand Prix as he put on a show in his first race at Monza as a Ferrari driver, charging through the field to take sixth place having started 10th.<\/p>\n
After his team mate Charles Leclerc\u2019s fairytale victory at the circuit last season, expectations were high for the Maranello outfit, especially following the disappointing previous round<\/a> in Zandvoortwhere both drivers failed to finish the race.<\/p>\n Hamilton proved he meant business as he topped the first practice session<\/a> of the weekend before securing a strong fifth position in Qualifying. However, he was demoted to 10th place on the grid due to a grid penalty he received for failing to slow under yellow flags ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix.<\/p>\n A magnificent launch saw him claw back positions at lights out, and he quickly slipped past his old rival Fernando Alonso to take P7 in the early laps. From there, he chased down Kick Sauber\u2019s Gabriel Bortoleto<\/a> for sixth, which is where he remained throughout the race despite some attempts to close the gap to George Russell.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was definitely some good overtaking,\u201d he later said. \u201cIt was tough coming from where I was to then try and catch up to all these other cars.<\/p>\n \u201cSitting in traffic for periods of time, obviously you lose time to the cars up ahead and you eat more of your tyres up.\u201d<\/p>\n He seemed content with his first Italian Grand Prix with Ferrari, summarising: \u201cI\u2019m genuinely quite happy with the overall performance, and I think that\u2019s as good as we could have got. We possibly could have got fifth if we had maybe undercut Mercedes, but we just missed it, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n