For all the seven world championships he has won, Lewis Hamilton, if not quite a model of humble modesty, has retained a certain heart-on-sleeve quality when he reflects on races past. Not for him the stentorian braggadocio you would expect from one who had chalked up that level of achievement in another sport.
So when he said this weekend, after the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, “competing for the top three is off the cards for a while”, you feel this is a realistic assessment, if one perhaps seasoned with a touch of pessimism.
He was speaking in the context of a race where Ferrari had disappointed the Monza faithful by finishing off the podium after an apparently strong showing in practice. Team-mate Charles Leclerc and he had been 1-2 in the first session on Friday but it was a gentle slide after that.
Hamilton had started 10th after that contentious grid penalty carried over from Zandvoort, but threatened George Russell’s fifth place until Ferrari’s strategy of extending the first stint failed to work out as hoped. Aside from his form and fluctuating mood, the main intrigue surrounding Hamilton this year has been his pace deficit to Leclerc – which was narrower than ever in Monza.
So Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur – speaking separately from Hamilton, in his usual post-race briefing – took a different view when asked about Lewis’s prospects of landing a podium, saying emphatically that it was possible.
“Yes, because he was able to fight with Russell at Zandvoort, and came back from P10 [on the grid] to the gearbox of Russell today,” said Vasseur.
“Russell was on the podium a couple of times. Yes, we can expect [Hamilton] to be on the podium.”
