Ferrari to celebrate past triumph amid present woes
MONZA, Italy :Ferrari will celebrate past glory, and hope to speed on from current woes, when they close out the European Formula One season with their long-suffering home fans at Monza this weekend.
Sunday's Italian Grand Prix marks the 50th anniversary of late Austrian triple champion Niki Lauda's first title, secured at the circuit with Enzo Ferrari's team in front of a huge and passionate crowd.
The cars now raced by seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, last year's winner at the 'Pista Magica', will pay tribute with a special red and white retro livery harking back to the 312T of 1975.
Ferrari fan favourite Jean Alesi, a one-off winner in Canada in 1995, will drive that year's V12-powered Ferrari 412 T2 for a noisy blast from the past around the super-fast track on Sunday morning.
It will all be a welcome distraction from present realities for a team that have not won a title since 2008 and, despite still being second overall, have given their fans a campaign full of pain.
Ferrari have yet to win this year - something lower-ranked rivals Red Bull and Mercedes have managed - and the home return comes hot on the heels of both cars crashing out in the Netherlands last weekend.
To make matters worse, Hamilton - record winner of 105 races who had the fans at fever pitch when he joined from Mercedes in January - will make his first Monza appearance as a Ferrari driver with a five-place grid penalty.
The 40-year-old has yet to stand on the podium in 15 starts in red and the sanction makes that even less likely at the 'Temple of Speed' for the five-times winner with McLaren and Mercedes.
McLaren meanwhile will be chasing their sixth win in a row and 13th in 16 races and are a whopping 324 points clear in the constructors' standings with Australian Oscar Piastri and Britain's Lando Norris in a two-horse title race.
The odds have shifted in Piastri's favour after Norris retired with a smoking car in Zandvoort while in second place but the Briton was on pole at Monza last year and also set fastest lap.
Sunday could see Piastri add to his 34 points lead or Norris claw back a fistful with eight races and three sprints remaining in the Asia, Americas and Middle East legs to come.
"It's almost a big enough gap now that I can just chill out about it and just go for it," said Norris last weekend of the battle ahead.
Ferrari fans would love it if their drivers could write another narrative and team boss Fred Vasseur saw some positives amid the debris of the Dutch weekend, despite saying Friday was the team's worst in three years.
Formula One has a remarkable record of pulling rabbits out of the hat at emotional moments and on special anniversaries and that will be one straw at least for the fans to clutch at.
"For the entire team, being surrounded by the passion of our tifosi is an incredible motivation to put our hearts into everything we do," said Vasseur.
"We are aiming to give our very best to repay them for their constant support.
"We’ll give it everything we have, knowing we can count on all the love and support of our tifosi."
