Lewis Hamilton has reflected on a disastrous qualifying session at Imola, suffering a Q2 elimination on Ferrari home soil.
Final practice saw Lewis Hamilton struggle for pace once again. His best time was over half a second away from Oscar Piastri’s session topping McLaren.
With a vast deficit to the front runners, qualifying in the top six looked to be a tall order. However, the pace issues of the SF-25 were brutally exposed with a Q2 elimination for the seven-time world champion.
Speaking to media after the session, Hamilton admitted his disappointment at his poor debut home race for Ferrari.
“I definitely feel devastated, I feel just gutted I guess.Because the car was generally feeling really good. I honestly felt like the car, the setup was just right, the brakes were working, everything was kind of in place. And we just can’t go quicker.
If you look at how quick Max is going through Turn 2 and 3, we just can’t match it. And when we put that new soft on at the end, for some reason it just didn’t come alive. There was no extra grip.”
Hamilton was pragmatic when asked if he felt the Tifosi could help him move up the order on race day.
“I mean, it’s supposed to be amazing. I mean, there’s something, it’s magical when you’re in this team, the support. You see how much the Ferrari, what Ferrari means to people.I’ve never seen anything like it.
“If it’s all possible, for sure. I know we’ve got a massive crowd here.I think it’s sold out or something for tomorrow. And as I said, I really thought we were going to be getting through.
“I thought the car was alive. And watching these guys doing 14.7s, I mean, we could just get to 15.7. That’s a lot of time missing.
What can Lewis Hamilton achieve after Imola qualifying?
Hamilton urged caution when asked if the SF-25’s strong underlying race could help him to move up the order.
“This is not a great race circuit to race on. It’s great to drive a single lap, but overtaking, you get stuck in a DRS train, and there’s not going to be a lot of movement tomorrow.
“But we are all softer tyres, and we’ll see what we can do strategy-wise. We’ll try and pick them off if we can. I feel like race pace could be good, but our race pace was decent, that’s it.
Progress at Ferrari in the face of Q2 exit
However, Hamilton maintains that Ferrari has made progress in understanding its rapid drop-off in performance in recent races.
“I think we made progress this weekend. The bit that I was talking about before is still not where it needs to be, and there’s performance in that, and we need more upgrades for sure.
“We’ve got to start adding on some stuff that we’re not at the level.I mean, look at Max’s rear, it just doesn’t move. He’s doing 6 to 10k faster through Turn 2 than us, and we can’t match that.
“Same with McLaren. We’ve just got to keep pushing, keep applying pressure. I believe the guys can find some performance.”
The seven-time world champion admitted that 2025 is a competitive year. He confirmed more work is needed to turn around Ferrari fortunes.
“It really is. I think this is, at least from my side, this is a foundation building. Getting to grips with everything within the team, making changes that are needed in order to help the team navigate to success long term.
“That’s stuff that I’m focused on in the background. There’s a lot of improvements we can make across the board, as well as obviously doing a faster car. I have all the faith and belief we can do that.
Asked later if he had an understanding of the cause behind the qualifying woes, Hamilton delivered an honest assessment.
“I have no idea why or something we couldn’t get through yet.”
