Ferrari’s mythology can catch up with you if you’re not careful, and it’s easy to be careless at Monza. fan They’re out in full force. They carry giant flags with a prancing horse on them, and they carry red flags. Oh, you’ll see similar scenes at the Dutch Grand Prix, and hear them at the British Grand Prix, too, but in Formula 1, only the tifosi are capable of completely blurring the line between nationalism and zealous worship of a team and its brand – or a brand and its team, depending on how you want to think about it. Meet a driver, and the first instinct is to grab his hand and hug him. Kiss itLike a king or a god. At the Italian Grand Prix, everyone is a Ferrari fan. Even if they say they’re not, they’re Ferrari fans.
Charles Leclerc is the perfect vehicle to carry all of this. Not exactly a homebody, but one who has been with the team for any relevant period of his racing career. His first year for Ferrari immediately established him as Ferrari’s answer to Max Verstappen; his dazzling, playful brilliance was enough to outshine even Sebastian “Ferrari’s biggest fan” Vettel, who had honestly battled Lewis Hamilton for the championship over the past two years. Carlos Sainz Jr. is also racing for the team, but, biology aside, he’s not as red as Leclerc. It was Leclerc who, in 2019, gave Ferrari its first home win in nearly a decade. And with Lewis Hamilton joining the team next year, 2024 will probably be the last year he and his little wiener dog form the undisputed core of the team.
Despite all the beauty and historical charm, Ferrari hasn’t won a championship since 2007, and it has achieved this feat through persistent, public and embarrassing procrastination. The most recent year in which Ferrari looked like a world championship contender from the start, 2022, was plagued by blown engines, serious strategy mistakes and the otherworldly acuity of Leclerc’s driving: at times, he would simply lose the car. Since then, Ferrari has made several major changes including exchange Leclerc’s race engineer, the now infamous Xavi, was replaced with Brian Bozzi, but any results on track were overshadowed by McLaren’s sudden ascendancy as the fastest car on the grid.
It was the same case at Monza, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri securing a front row lockout in qualifying while George Russell started third. Leclerc finished fourth, and FanBoost doesn’t exist in Formula E anymore, much less in F1; unless Ferrari engineers can find a way to convert tifosi cheers into horsepower, home track advantage can’t overcome the speed gap. It requires strategy and luck – a big challenge for Ferrari.
On paper, Ferrari were relatively even early in the race. Despite his stellar qualifying performances, Norris’ pole-to-first-lap-lead conversion rate has been very poor, and his problems starting the race at Monza came back to haunt him. He managed to get off the line, but a perfectly executed dive down the inside of Piastri put him behind. When it rains, it pours: Leclerc was able to overtake Norris at the next turn. This track position advantage was quickly wiped out by McLaren making the first call into the pits and pulling off a successful undercut.
After the first pit stop, Piastri and Norris were running first and second. Unfortunately for McLaren, their pace surge coincided with Ferrari-lite strategy calling. With just 15 laps left, and Piastri five seconds ahead of the rest of the field, McLaren called Piastri in for a second pit stop. It was a huge decision at first glance, leading to disbelieving comments from Lewis Hamilton mid-race and discussion of strategy after the race. “Looking at the race trace, I think McLaren had the pace, they just pushed too hard. They were lapping too fast at the start, and their tyres wore out,” Hamilton Said“I think they really planned two stops, that’s why they were pushing so hard. If they backed off and went too far, they could have definitely made a stop. I was getting information on what time they were running, and there’s no way your tires could last at that speed.”
Ferrari easily made the most of the opportunity given to them. They called for a one-stop, and from then on it was a matter of tyre management. While Sainz fell behind the McLarens, Leclerc managed to lap just two tenths off his fastest speed on older hard tyres. In the end, the winning streak wasn’t as flashy as Leclerc’s overtake on lap one, and the win wasn’t as new and romantic as his first, but Leclerc—who is out of the championship race—can Get into the rest of the season He is content even without winning another race. This year, at least, he won the races that mattered, which was summed up well by Alex Jacques’ declaration on the broadcast: “The man from Monaco is the man from Monza.”
Ferrari’s call for a one-stopper came from the same intuition that inspired George Russell Strategy Calls At Spa – even the best of two-stoppers offer no chance of winning the race, so you can only make the choice that can win – although it simply doesn’t match in terms of courage. In this case, it was the really obvious thing to do, which was said by the commentators immediately after the McLaren pitted. But Ferrari has spent years doing the wrong thing despite the really obvious things. It finally did the right thing at the right time, and, by the will of the Prancing Horse, will have the right driver to do it by the time he decides to retire.
Leclerc made all the right moves on the podium, too. He stood for the national anthem and the champagne spray, of course in the unique black race suit that Ferrari had prepared for the weekend, but when it came to taking photos and waving to the tifosi in the crowd below the podium, he showed the familiar red of his undershirt. Every romantic moment in F1 is a trick of the light: the champagne, the sound of the engine, the idea that any of this matters or is so enjoyable. The greatest trick any driver or team can pull off is to make you believe in him in some way, even if only for a moment. To that end, Ferrari could have installed Brice Bozzi solely based on his ability to run off poetic declarations after a victory.But how do you make us dream,” he shouted to Leclerc, “How do you make us dream“But how do you make us dream, how do you make us dream.