Ferrari ended Friday (4) in Monza with a concern for Lewis Hamilton: the speed disadvantage on the straights compared to Mercedes. The Briton revealed that he lost about six tenths to George Russell just in these sections during the second free practice for the Formula 1 Italian GP.
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Hamilton was second in the first practice, behind Charles Leclerc, but dropped to fifth in the second session, more than four and a half tenths behind Russell.
“The straight-line speed is considerable. Just looking at the deltas, I was losing something like six tenths to George just on the straights, which is something we need to analyze,” commented the seven-time world champion. “And also the balance, it was really hard to extract a fast lap from the car. It wasn’t easy to drive in FP2 for some reason. So we made some changes, but it shouldn’t have gotten that bad. So we can go back, but we will evaluate and see if we can improve the car.”
The team still needs to understand if the loss is related to drag, power, or energy management. Hamilton, however, highlighted the evolution of the Ferrari engine: “I think that’s what we need to investigate, if that’s it, if it’s an energy management issue. But the engine is an improvement, which makes me very grateful to the guys at the factory who are working on it.”
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“But our energy management schedule is different from others, from our competitors. But yes, it seems they might have less drag on the straights, so that’s definitely something we need to analyze.”
Despite the below-expected performance on Friday, Hamilton remains confident in the 2026 project. On Thursday, he had stated that Ferrari found a clear direction for developments and continues to believe the team can win.
“Every little detail helps. And I think, up to this point in the year, we are losing, even in the last race, on such a short circuit, we were losing four tenths per lap during the race. So that’s a huge deficit and we’ve carried that throughout the year so far. This is a step forward. It’s not all the difference we need, but we knew it would be like this. But seeing parts arriving every weekend, being added to the car, it’s exciting to see that we are pushing and, you know, we still strongly believe we have what it takes to win,” concluded the Briton.
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