Lewis Hamilton was overjoyed by his fourth-place finish at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix as his Ferrari career finally starts to take shape.
The seven-time world champion enjoyed his best performance in red in the Scuderia’s first home race of the season at Imola on Sunday.
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Hamilton recovered from qualifying 12th in Italy with an impressive drive to record his best grand prix result with the Prancing Horse.
The 40-year-old, who won the Chinese Sprint, had struggled in the main races this season, with fifth being his previous best return.
However, Hamilton took advantage of several safety cars to pass George Russell, Alex Albon and Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc to finish just outside of the podium places.
The Brit had already impressed the Tifosi on home soil before he got behind the wheel, according to Jacques Villeneuve.
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Hamilton showcased a few Italian phrases that he’d been learning while addressing the crowd in his pre-race interview at Imola.
The gesture was something Michael Schumacher was accused of not doing enough of during his Ferrari heyday, which meant his connection with the Tifosi only truly developed after he’d left.
When asked on Sky Sports F1 about Hamilton learning Italian, 1997 F1 world champion Villeneuve joked: “Well, mostly for an English-speaking person because you guys never learn foreign languages!
“It’s tough, everyone speaking English!
“But seriously, I don’t remember Schumacher doing that, making that effort, going out there.
“Seb [Vettel] did, but after how many races? His seventh race, and he’s already saying things in Italian. His accent wasn’t too bad!”
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F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali previously insisted that Hamilton needed to speak the Italian language in order to ‘integrate’ at Ferrari.
Despite Hamilton’s best efforts, communication has been a point of contention with new race engineer Riccardo Adami.
But Ferrari got the big calls right at Imola after their Miami mix-up, with a P4 raising hope F1’s most famous team can return to the top.
“It felt so great to finally get the set-up right and to have that bond with the car throughout the race,” Hamilton told Sky Sports.
“I’m ecstatic. It would have been great to have had some more laps and challenged for a podium.”
Hamilton added: “I think we’re slowly getting there, and I think me and Riccardo did a fantastic job with his communication with me.
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“I was calm, so then I think he was calm, and the team were calm and executing the strategy, and the pit stops were awesome.”
“We didn’t expect the result that we had today,” Hamilton continued.
“We came into the weekend very hopeful and there was a small fix that came for a component that we were hoping was going to help us progress – which it did.
“Then we went into qualifying and to be out of Q3 was tough to swallow, but I came in today and everyone’s heads were high and super driven.
“They did such a fantastic job with the strategy. The timing was right, calm and concise and clear – and I felt I won with the car.”
