Formula One: Ferrari at home, revised rules and Antonelli penalized, five questions ahead of the Italian Grand Prix

Ferrari arrives at Monza believing a home victory is within reach. A penalty that sends Kimi Antonelli to the back of the grid has strengthened the Scuderia’s hopes of claiming its third win of the season.

The team has also introduced a new engine, adding to the confidence around its recent progress. Lewis Hamilton said the car had improved from one weekend to the next and that the team continued to believe it had what it needed to win. Charles Leclerc took a more cautious view, pointing to Ferrari’s weakness in top speed on the straights. Backed by the Tifosi, he hopes to turn the excitement into a victory, which would be his third at Monza after wins in 2019 and 2024.

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Seeing the progress accumulate every weekend, seeing the car improve, it’s exciting to see that we are moving forward and, you know, we continue to firmly believe that we have what it takes to win.

Energy management has become a central problem at the “Temple of Speed.” Drivers spend about 80% of a lap at full throttle, while the track offers few opportunities to recharge the battery. Under the new regulations, the paddock has been concerned about two effects: lift and coast, when a driver eases off before a corner to recharge, and super clipping, when the electric motor cuts power deployment on a straight to force a recharge.

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Turn all this positive excitement into a victory on Sunday.

The second phenomenon can reduce top speed by more than 30 kilometers per hour and has raised safety concerns. The FIA has responded by limiting the energy that can be recovered to 5 megajoules per lap. The change reduces straight-line speeds considerably, but it does not remove the difficult energy-management demands facing the teams.

Hamilton said a higher recovery limit could lead to super clipping throughout the lap and losses of 30 or 40 kilometers per hour at the end of each straight. The revised limit is intended to avoid that outcome, even as teams continue to manage the trade-off between speed and battery recovery.

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If the recovery limit were higher, we would do super clipping everywhere and would probably lose 30 or 40 kilometers per hour at the end of every straight.