While Lewis Hamilton takes positives from Imola, teammate Charles Leclerc admits that the frustration is getting to him.
Starting eleventh and twelfth following a qualifying session described by the home team as “a disaster”, Hamilton finished fourth while his teammate came home in sixth.
While the afternoon saw far more cordial radio exchanges between the seven-time world champion and his engineer, his teammate’s increasing frustration was obvious.
“I was saying before the race, it was one of the races where you’ve got to race with the heart and you’ve got to put the elbows out a little bit,” said the Monegasque at race end following an afternoon in which he was involved in hard-fought scraps with Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon.
“I know that when it’s like this, you go very much on the limit, sometimes a little bit over,” he added. “But when you are starting P11, I mean, as a driver, I just cannot accept the situation we are in.
“I took risks,” he admitted. “I don’t think that with Pierre I was particularly at fault or over the limit. It was just a racing incident in the way it was. With Alex, it was very much on the limit for sure. I thought that in the way the rules are written, I was right on the limit of those rules.”
The incident with Albon, saw the Williams driver go off and having noted it the stewards confirmed that it would be investigated after the race.
However, on the advice of his team, Leclerc yielded the position back to the Thai driver and in light of this the stewards opted to take no further action.
“I’ve got to check the images again,” said Leclerc, “but I don’t regret anything I’ve done. I mean, today was all about giving it all. And I knew from the moment that I didn’t take the pit stop on the second safety car that it was going to be a very difficult race.”
Looking ahead to next weekend in Monaco, his home race which he won last year, he predicted “a very difficult weekend”.
“I think Monaco is exposing quite a few weaknesses of our car,” he said, “so I don’t know, but there are also many things that you cannot really expect. The amount of risk you take in qualifying, the car is set-up in a very different way, so I hope we will be surprised.”
On the other side of the garage it was all smiles, as Hamilton had finished ahead of his teammate for the first time, and in front of the tifosi.
“China was really great but I would say this one was better,” said Hamilton, referring to the Shanghai Sprint which he won. “I’ve always loved when you’re fighting from further back and coming through,” he added. “That’s how I started off as a kid. It’s such a better feeling than starting first and finishing first.
“Definitely an absolutely mega race,” he grinned, “and so many positives to take from it, there’s tonnes of positives to take from today.
“One is the strategy. It was really fantastic, they made great calls. Didn’t put a foot wrong there. The car really helped. China, I felt really aligned with the car and then the only other time is just today. I felt that real synergy. I think the set-up was great.
“I think we made a bit of an improvement in our performance for the race,” he added. “We’ve just got to unlock the potential in qualifying. If we had qualified better, we would have been fighting for a podium which is something we didn’t think would be possible.”
The seven-time world champion, appearing in front of the tifosi for the first time, spent the early phase of the race battling local hero Kimi Antonelli, who eventually retired, came away from the Imola experience feeling pretty much overwhelmed.
“It’s been incredible,” he said. “What an amazing experience. It was quite incredible to think that I’m now here in one of the two Ferraris and having that connection with such a passionate group of people. It’s unbelievable.
“You can just see how passionate people are for Ferrari. I guess it doesn’t matter who’s in it, they just love to see the red cars. The red car comes and they get so excited: Red, red! It’s amazing to see, it’s really cool.”
Check out our Sunday gallery from Imola here.
