Monza gearing up for Hamilton in Ferrari red at the Italian GP

There’s an added air of excitement among the passionate, red-clad tifosi at the Italian Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton is preparing to make his Monza debut in a Ferrari.

It will be Hamilton’s 19th race at the high-speed Italian track, but his first in red, and his weekend got off to a great start as the British driver was fastest in Friday’s first practice session.

Seven-time world champion Hamilton has stood on the iconic Monza podium eight times, five of those after winning the Italian Grand Prix.

But Hamilton – who hasn’t finished higher than fourth in a difficult first year with the Italian Scuderia – is not thinking about what it would be like to do so clad in Ferrari red.

“I haven’t (thought about it), simply because I’ve been on the podium plenty of times here, so I know what it’s like to be up there,” Hamilton said. “I’ve seen how it’s been for other Ferrari drivers, and anything I try to imagine will be far from what that feeling could be.”

Hamilton will have to serve a five-place grid penalty at Sunday’s race as Ferrari looks to rebound from a disastrous Dutch Grand Prix that saw both the British driver and teammate Charles Leclerc crash out in separate incidents.

“I’m still obviously in my first year with the team, and so every weekend is the first time driving this car at that track,” Hamilton said. “I think Ferrari’s journey has gone pretty well in the past years. Obviously, they won here last year with a great strategy and a great drive from Charles.

“I’m really keen to see how the car works here. We’re definitely learning from weekend to weekend, loads of positives to take from the last, so I think we just have to keep building on that.”

Hamilton had the crowd on its feet when he jumped to the top of the timesheets towards the end of the first practice session, going 0.169 seconds quicker than Leclerc for a Ferrari one-two that will have the tifosi dreaming of similar on Sunday.

None of the other drivers were within half a second of Hamilton. Lando Norris was nearly a second slower – in sixth – and championship leader Oscar Piastri sat out the session, with rookie Alex Dunne taking over his McLaren.

While the red of Ferrari will dominate the grandstands, two papaya-colored cars will take center stage in the title fight.

McLaren drivers Norris and Piastri are battling each other for what would be a first Formula 1 title for either.

Norris saw his title chances diminish dramatically at last weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix as his McLaren broke down while he was chasing Piastri, who went on to win the race and extend his lead in the drivers’ championship to 34 points.

“I don’t think much will change,” Piastri said. “He’s certainly not out of the fight. Yes, it’s a bit more difficult now, but I don’t expect much to change, I think we’ll race each other the same way, I think the amount of risks we’re taking will be the same.

“We’re both trying to drive as fast as we can, it’s not like we’ve been holding anything back from that side of things.”

F1 chief executive Stefano Domenicali recently suggested radical changes could be made to race weekends to attract younger audiences.

The most drastic of those could be the shortening of the actual races.

“I will be on the other side, I will be in front of the TV when that happens,” 44-year-old Fernando Alonso said. “I don’t think it’s a problem with the sport. Also, football matches are a little bit long … and no one is talking about having 60-minute football matches or something like that.

“So it’s a problem of society and the kids, but not the sport. So probably it’s not needed, the change.”

Domenicali said that packing the calendar with more sprint races could also be an option and claimed that most drivers are in favor with even four-time champion Max Verstappen, who has been among the most volubly critical of the sprint format, coming round to the idea.

However, Verstappen said on Thursday that his mindset hadn’t really changed.

“I mean you all know what I think about sprint races,” he said. “But the length of the race I think it’s fine. Sometimes it’s one and a half hours, sometimes close to two. In other sports as well, sometimes you have an exciting game, sometimes absolutely boring and you fall asleep.

“Yes, I see the positive (about sprint races) – people are making more money … But F1 has been like this since the 50s. I understand that sports evolve and stuff like that, but we shouldn’t go too crazy. I think the sprint race is already, from my side, crazy enough.”