MONZA, Italy -- Lewis Hamilton appeared to issue a message to his misfiring Ferrari team after qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix: prioritise me now or we can kiss the 2026 championship goodbye.
Hamilton qualified for the team’s home race in fifth, one place behind teammate Charles Leclerc, although both will rise one position for the starting grid thanks to Oscar Piastri’s penalty.
Hamilton is 59 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli, who starts at the back due to a Mercedes engine penalty. He is 33 points ahead of Leclerc, but he gave a very clear indication on Saturday that he feels the team are still treating both as if they have an equal shot of catching the Italian.
“At the end ... The team was solely focused on trying to get an equal tow for each driver. And we just stumbled,” a frustrated Hamilton said on Saturday afternoon, referring to the speed boost drivers can get at Monza if they drive within a certain distance of the car in front.
Teams often have their drivers alternate runs in front of their teammate so both can have a lap with the benefit of the ‘tow.’
He added: “We’re at a point in the year where 59 points is a huge deficit to recover from, especially when Mercedes continue to be the leaders in speed. So yeah, we do have to work as a team. But have we been?”
Hamilton then shrugged and shook his head, adding: “If and when that will ever change, we’ll find out. All I can do is try to arrive and do the best job I can.”
He then referenced the fact that F1’s season is more than half way through.
“There’s light at the end of the tunnel, but it’s getting dimmer the further we get through,” he said.
“The team’s doing an amazing job in pushing us forward, I’m so proud of everyone working really hard. I say it all the time, but it’s because I really am. I couldn’t do what I do without seeing the great work that’s happening. I always want to make sure that I acknowledge them and recognise them for that because I want them to continue to push, and I want them to say that we need to keep that passion on fire.
“But on the track, we need to come correct and act accordingly to make sure we get the result we need.”
When asked what the conversations among his team have been like to ensure Ferrari nails the teamwork, Hamilton paused for a few seconds before answering, making a reference to the surprise name at the top of Saturday’s timing screen. “Well, all I can say is, Pierre [Gasly] did a great job, but clearly, looking from a distance, it looked [Alpine] they worked really well as a team,” he said.
Hamilton had been upset with Ferrari’s execution of team orders two weeks ago at the Dutch Grand Prix, when they dithered on telling Leclerc to move out of the way when they were on different strategies.
When asked why this teamwork question had been such a big one for Ferrari recently, he replied: “That’s not a question for me, you need to ask [team boss] Fred [Vasseur].”
On whether he thinks he’ll be listened to going into Sunday’s race, he said: “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
Hamilton had finished final practice in second earlier in the day, but qualifying looked messy from the beginning.
The seven-time world champion only narrowly scraped through to Q3, beating Gabriel Bortoleto by just 0.001 seconds to advance, and then was sent out way behind the rest of the pack for his crucial Q3 lap, meaning he had no chance of using the tow of a driver in front.
Hamilton said Ferrari’s poor execution of qualifying started there and continued into the top-10 shootout.
“[In Q2] were supposed to do a push, cool, cool, push,” he said. “Because everyone was waiting and Charles didn’t want to go out first, we had to wait, wait, wait, and then only got one push. And that made it pretty challenging for us. And then my Q3, I didn’t have any wheels on the car, basically and everyone left whilst my engine was running.
“I went out like 25 seconds behind everyone. And that just put me out of rhythm. Because when you’re following another car, or when you’re in that tow, you arrive much faster, so the braking zones are different. And when you’re on your own, you lose the tow, there’s a lot of time lost.”
