On the short walk from the railway station in Imola to the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, the tree-lined streets, scattering dappled spring sunshine, throng with the faithful. They come adorned in therosso corsaof theScuderia, heading towards their first home race of the season and the long-awaited chance to see the seven-time world championLewis Hamiltontake to the track for the team they feel are their own.
The anticipation, building for more than a year, is palpable and the passion that comes with it all too striking – as Hamilton is more than aware.
Since Monday thetifosi, as Italians call fans, have stood patiently outside the factory gates at Maranello, less than 50 miles from Imola. There each day to see the drivers arrive in the morning and waiting steadfastly until they leave in the evening, before they follow the team up the road to Imola.
When Hamilton announced he was to switch toFerrarifrom Mercedes at the start of last season, thetifosiknew there was a full season to go before their man would don the scarlet but even at this race last year his arrival was being celebrated. The most successful driver in the sport’s history finally united with the oldest and most successful marque and the dream of finally ending the Scuderia’s drivers’ championship drought stretching back to 2007.
Yet Ferrari are not in the place Hamilton or the team expected for their first foray together on Italian soil. Having finished as runners-up to McLaren last year and closing with a competitive car, this season has opened with disappointment, as the SF-25 struggles for pace and performance. The single swallow that was awin in the sprint racein China for Hamilton was not the harbinger of spring for Ferrari.
In Imola Hamilton knew the weight, the history and the hope that is part and parcel of driving for the Scuderia. “It is pretty incredible the support this team has,” he said. “There is a lot of high hope and expectation of course but that comes with greatness. When you are a great team, that is what people expect.”
Great expectations then but Hamilton is seventh in the drivers’ title and 90 points behind the leader, McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, with Ferrari fourth in the constructors’. At thelast round in Miamihe and his teammate Charles Leclerc found themselves in an intense fight with the two Williams cars, there absolutely on merit, and with Leclerc and Hamilton managing only seventh and eighth.
The tricky start to the season has been harder on Hamilton, who is adapting to a new team, its structure, operations and personnel after 12 years at Mercedes. This is a complex enough task even if the car is quick and compliant, which the Ferrari is not.
His frustration has been aired but it is as yet still only that, an immensely competitive driver urging his team on to more. The scrutiny on them all has only ramped up to a greater degree for this home race, as acknowledged by the team principal, Fred Vasseur.
“There is extra pressure but we have to take this as a positive, as a push and to see all thetifosiin the grandstands it’s an extra motivation,” he said. “Lewis’s position is that he is taking it as a huge opportunity, this home race in front of thetifosi, with all this enthusiasm.”
Certainly here the British driver’s arrival has been embraced. Kiarah and her friend Selena, 19-year-olds from Ravenna, were bedecked in Hamilton’s No 44 branded Ferrari team gear, with Kiarah, having added a home made set of “44” deeley boppers, waggling enthusiastically with every bob of her head. “We are so excited to see him,” they said almost in unison. “We like his mentality, he is a winner. To have him at Ferrari, we are so happy,” said Kiarah. “He will win for Ferrari, maybe not now but later, he will.”
There is, then, something of a mutual appreciation occurring between driver and perhaps the most ardent fans of them all. A relationship perhaps unique to Ferrari and its place in Italy, as Hamilton recognised and was soaking up at Imola. “You know that Italians are passionate and that there is passion around Ferrari,” he added. “But it’s a lot more than you expect when you are actually in it and it is beautiful.”
Hamilton managed fifth fastest in first practice, with the time sheets headed again by the two championship leading McLarens, of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, but with under a tenth of a second separating the top five.
In the afternoon session Piastri was once more on top, two-hundredths clear of Norris but with both drivers enjoying a full two-tenths on Alpine’s Pierre Gasly in third, Mercedes’s George Russell fourth and Max Verstappen fifth for Red Bull.