The England shirts give them away before they even speak. “Hamilton 44 Still I Rise” is splashed across the backs in bold letters, a declaration rather than a slogan.
English? “We’re from the Netherlands,” Anton and Tim grin at the Monza food court, hemmed in by fans and the smell of grilled sausages.
So, Max Verstappen fans then? “Nooooo! And we never have been,” Tim fires back, laughing.
They are here for one man. Lewis Hamilton. Seven world titles, 59 points down on Kimi Antonelli in the championship, and still the centre of gravity for a huge slice of this crowd.
“With a little bit of luck, for sure he can do it,” says Anton, eyes on that elusive eighth crown.
Tim leans in on the reality of this season’s equation. “Maybe with a little bit of luck – but he needs Charles Leclerc.”
In other words: this might be the moment Leclerc becomes the dutiful number two. “Yes, for sure,” Tim nods. “At least for this season.”
That’s the tension hanging over Monza. The Temple of Speed is Ferrari territory, but the title fight is being shaped in Mercedes silver, and the man many in red still love is the one they may need to beat.
A Puzzling Race in the Making
Down in the paddock, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella looks at the numbers and shrugs. This one is hard to read.
“I’m actually not sure that it’s easy to think how it will unfold,” he admits. And you can see why.
Pierre Gasly and Alpine nailed qualifying. Perfect lap, perfect execution, pole position. Yet on Friday’s race runs, they were only the fifth-quickest package, behind Mercedes, McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull. The hero of Saturday could be the sitting duck of Sunday.
Energy management will bite, too. The slipstream that dragged cars along in qualifying will still be a weapon in the race, but it comes with a nasty tactical twist. Drivers will wrestle with when to hit the electrical boost and when to sit tight.
“If you start to play with the boost and overtake cars,” Stella explains, “you may get overtaken and you may start to lose overall the time in the race. But at the same time, if you're faster, you may want to pass.”
That’s the Monza paradox. Attack and risk draining your battery, or wait and risk wasting your pace.
Strategists expect a one-stop race. Tyre degradation should be low, performance across the compounds tightly bunched. George Russell, starting second in what looks like the fastest car over a stint, is the only driver with a fresh set of mediums. Ferrari, McLaren and Max Verstappen all have a new set of softs in their pocket.
So the big call: unleash the softs off the line, or save them for a late, aggressive charge? Medium–soft could be the golden route if the first stint runs long enough, but soft/medium/hard remains on the table if things get messy.
F1’s own model has Russell winning from Oscar Piastri, Leclerc and Gasly. History says that model rarely gets it right. What it does underline is the margin for error: a green-flag pit stop costs around 24 seconds; under a safety car, roughly 15. One mistimed stop, one poorly judged boost, and a title contender’s afternoon can vanish in a single lap.
Celebrity Heat in the Paddock
The paddock is heaving. The sun is unforgiving. Monza feels like it’s boiling from the tarmac up.
In the middle of it all, Jannik Sinner is trying – and failing – to move unnoticed. The five-time Grand Slam champion isn’t at the US Open this year. He’s here instead, an Italian star at his home grand prix, and the scramble for a photo is brutal.
Ferrari flags blur past, phones are held aloft, and somewhere in the crush a fan named Julieta emerges, eyes wide, clutching the moment.
“It was amazing!! My grandfather made me a fan of his. Unbelievable!!” she says, still buzzing.
Her heart, like so many around her, is pulled in different directions. “I really want Lewis Hamilton to win, I believe in that, but if Charles Leclerc wins, it would also be amazing.”
And then there’s Kimi Antonelli.
The 20-year-old Italian, leading the world championship by 59 points after six wins this year, starts today from the back because of an engine penalty. He could end Italy’s 73-year wait for a home world champion. But he would do it in Mercedes colours, not Ferrari red.
“A victory for Kimi today would be important for Monza because he’s Italian,” Julieta says. She even floats the unthinkable for many in red: Ferrari “could maybe” offer their support to the 20-year-old if he goes on to seal the title.
She pauses, then smiles. “But I prefer Hamilton.”
That’s Antonelli’s impact. He is disrupting the old rules of fandom in Ferrari’s Italy. For generations, the Scuderia has been more than a team. It’s a creed.
“Ferrari is my heart,” says Thomas, born and raised in Monza.
“It’s a religion,” adds Emanuele, at the track with his daughter Matilde. “In Italy, we do support other teams and other sports, but there is only one Ferrari.”
Yet this season, the Italian prodigy is going wheel-to-wheel with Ferrari’s own Hamilton and Leclerc for wins and the title. At the Temple of Speed, the faithful are being asked a new question: can you cheer for Mercedes if the driver in silver might finally bring the championship back to Italy?
A Portrait for a Legacy
Away from the timing screens, another tribute waits for Hamilton.
French artist Constantin Vincent has spent 50 hours building a portrait of the seven-time champion, crafted from old karting tyres and acrylics, layered with fans’ memories and favourite phrases.
“There is ‘remember who you are mate’, his trophies, his number 44, ‘Hammertime’, ‘Still I Rise’,” says the 24-year-old, who left finance three years ago to become a full-time artist. He has already immortalised Rafa Nadal, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. Now it’s Hamilton’s turn.
“It really is a tribute to Hamilton and to all the community,” he explains.
The F1 fanbase helped push the project along and get the artwork to Monza. Vincent dug into Hamilton’s story, his values, the words that echo around grandstands and on the backs of shirts like Anton and Tim’s.
“So, I take time to create and learn about the driver, and it was a pleasure to discover this guy and discover his values,” he says.
The piece still needs one final step: delivery to Hamilton himself. If it happens this weekend, it will land in his hands at a circuit where his past glories now collide with a complicated present – chasing Antonelli, relying on Leclerc, adored in a country that still worships Ferrari first.
Gasly’s Gambit and Russell’s Response
On Saturday, 15 minutes before one of the most surprising poles in years, Pierre Gasly sat down to play chess.
His opponent: George Russell. Online. One-on-one, just before qualifying.
“I must say before the quali, I felt pretty confident,” Gasly smiles, “because I was picking piece by piece after piece.”
His performance coach, Ben Thorne, watched it unfold.
“For a fun story,” Gasly recalls, “Ben told me, ‘OK, well, you’re getting George here, but he’s going to get you in a few minutes.’”
Gasly’s response involved a swear word and a grin. Then he went out and put his Alpine on pole at Monza, the first Frenchman to do so since Jean Alesi in 1997.
“Turned out that it worked out well. So yeah, it’s been fun,” he says.
The board is reset today. Gasly starts from the front, but the car beneath him has not been the class of the field over race distance. Russell lurks in P2 in a Mercedes that has looked ominously quick in long runs. Behind them, the heavy hitters – Ferrari, McLaren, Verstappen – are ready to pounce.
The chess metaphor writes itself. Gasly has taken a queen with that qualifying lap. Now he has to survive 53 laps with the pack hunting him down.
Scorching Stage, High Stakes
Round 13 of the season, and Monza feels like the last blast of summer. The temperatures are high, the tension higher.
Gasly’s “belter” of a lap has stunned the grid. His pole is a throwback to Alesi, to an era when Monza often threw up something wild. Yet the bigger picture sits further back.
Antonelli, the championship leader, starts 19th after that engine penalty. The question is obvious: how much damage can he limit, or can he do something outrageous from the rear?
Russell, from P2, has a clear shot at slicing into his team-mate’s 59-point advantage. He has the pace, the tyre allocation, and a clean line into Turn One. This is a chance he cannot afford to waste.
Ferrari, by their own admission, lost some edge. But they are still close enough to matter. McLaren’s form means Piastri and Lando Norris are lurking as genuine threats. Norris, from eighth, is chasing a third straight win. Verstappen, as ever, sits ready to punish any hesitation.
The poll at the top of the page will tell you what the fans think. Gasly from pole? Norris from mid-grid? Antonelli from 19th? The romantic pick is obvious. The logical one, less so.
What’s certain is this: under the late-summer sun, with Ferrari flags whipping in the heat and Hamilton’s name still echoing around a circuit that once belonged to him, Monza is about to ask a brutal question of the title race.
Who blinks first – the young Italian leading the world, or the seven-time champion still chasing history?
