Ferrari may have arrived at Monza armed with a freshly upgraded power unit, but Lewis Hamilton has warned that the Scuderia still has a potentially costly weakness lurking on the straights at its home circuit.
The Italian team introduced its second engine upgrade of the season under Formula 1’s ADUO framework, with the additional power immediately helping Charles Leclerc set the pace in Friday’s opening practice.
Yet Mercedes responded emphatically in FP2, as George Russell topped the session while Leclerc was second and Hamilton could manage only fifth.
The result left Hamilton staring at a deficit of 0.457s to Russell – and, more worryingly, a sizeable chunk of that gap appeared to be disappearing into Monza’s long blasts of full throttle.
Mercedes has Ferrari looking over its shoulder
Hamilton admitted the straightline figures were particularly troubling, especially when compared directly with Mercedes’ cars.
“Straightline speed, it's considerable to worry about,” Hamilton said. “Just looking at the deltas just there, I was losing something like six tenths to George, just in the straights. Which is something we need to look into.
“Then just balance, it was really, really hard to pull the lap out of the car. It was not an easy one to drive in FP2 for some reason. So we made a couple of changes but it shouldn't have really been bad.
“So we might revert, but we're going to look and see if we can make the car better.”
For Ferrari, the concern is particularly acute at a circuit where outright efficiency can make or break a lap. The team’s upgraded engine is understood to deliver around 15bhp and should reduce its power deficit to Mercedes, but Hamilton believes the numbers still require closer examination.
Ferrari’s upgrade gets Hamilton’s approval
The seven-time world champion was reluctant to blame the new power unit itself, instead suggesting that Ferrari’s energy deployment strategy could be contributing to the disparity.
“What we need to look into, if it's deployment,” Hamilton said about the deficit.
“But the engine is an improvement which I'm really grateful for the guys back at the factory for working on. But our deployment schedule is different to the others, our competitors.”
Team principal Fred Vasseur likewise pointed towards a broader aerodynamic picture, suggesting Mercedes may simply be carrying less drag down Monza’s seemingly endless straights.
“It seems like they maybe have less drag for the straights, so that's something we need to definitely look at,” Vasseur said.
The Ferrari boss stressed that top speed is determined by far more than horsepower alone, while acknowledging that the latest ADUO development has delivered a meaningful step.
“You have to keep in mind the performance in the straight line. It's the drag, it's the weight of the car, it's everything. It's not just the engine. We did a step for sure and we didn't bring ADUO2 for nothing. But I think we still have a decent gap.”
For Ferrari, then, the upgrade may have closed one wound without completely healing the problem.
And with Mercedes now showing its teeth at the Temple of Speed, the Scuderia has precious little time to find the missing speed.
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