Lewis Hamilton has reflected on his best Sunday result for Ferrari in Imola after securing P4 on the Scuderia’s doorstep.
A devastating Q2 elimination set up Lewis Hamilton for a challenging race at Imola, on a track not known for overtaking.
However a well executed strategy from Ferrari, coupled with aggressive battling through the field gave the seven-time world champion a lifeline.
The late Virtual followed by full Safety Car deployments allowed Hamilton to take advantage of the speed in his SF-25.
Chasing down Alexander Albon in the closing stages, he steamed past to the delight of the Tifosi. Such was his speed, he finished just 1.4 seconds behind the third placed McLaren of Oscar Piastri.
Speaking to media after the race, Hamilton said he felt positive about his first home race for Ferrari. He highlighted his confidence in the car, a marked change from recent races.
“There’s tonnes of positives today One is the strategy was really fantastic today they made great calls didn’t put a foot wrong there.
“It was probably China I felt really aligned with the car and then the only other time is today I felt that real synergy and I think the setup was great.
“I think we made a bit of an improvement in our performance for the race we just got to unlock the potential in qualifying If we had qualified by the end we would have been fine for a podium which is something we didn’t think would be possible.
Did Lewis Hamilton miss out on podium at Imola?
Asked whether he could have secured a podium at Imola for Ferrari, Lewwis Hamilton delivered an honest assessment.
“I think I needed probably another 5 laps or something like that to really get close enough to really challenge the McLarens. They are are still fast on old tyres.
He spoke about his race strategy, and hopes to take the learnings of this weekend to Monaco in a week\s time.
“Obviously at the beginning it wasn’t spectacular I got a decent start I kind of got squeezed in and I lost ground to McLaren and Mercedes then had this hard tyre and I was just sitting there waiting.
I definitely had to be patient just breathe and then bit by bit strategy started to plan out and the start of the car really came alive when I got onto the medium tyres and it really caught the end of the race
“Again just every race I go to it’s the first time with this car so I really have no idea what Ferrari feels like the races I’ve been coming up to particularly Monaco.
The track weather which we’ve been strong in the past, I hope we can take some of the learnings from this weekend in the car and apply it and really hopefully it will still be a question about getting the tyres working in a single lap.
“If we can figure that out next week then I think we could be in a good position. I think our car is generally not good in high speed OK in medium and maybe a little bit not as strong as the others in low.
“Obviously the next race is all low so we’ve got to see how we can try and pull some more out in the next week .
