Vasseur backs Hamilton for a 2025 podium after Monza lift: “Yes, we can expect it”
Ferrari arrived at Monza bruised and guarded. It left with a spring in its step and, crucially, a Lewis Hamilton who finally looked like he was beginning to find the edges of the SF-25 rather than being dragged by them.
After a weekend that featured a tidy qualifying, a grid penalty carried over from Zandvoort, and a punchy climb to P6 on Sunday, team boss Fred Vasseur didn’t hedge his bets. Asked if Hamilton will stand on an F1 podium before the season is out, he didn’t blink.
“Yeah… yes, we can expect to be on the podium,” Vasseur said, pointing to the Briton’s fight with George Russell in the Netherlands and his recovery drive at Monza as evidence the tide is turning. “It started in Zandvoort. The outcome wasn’t positive, but the pace was better from the beginning compared to Charles. The mood was better during the race. And the energy he received from the Tifosi in Milan was something very special for him. It gave him an extra boost all weekend.”
It’s more than just romantic spin. Hamilton, by his sky-high standards, has had to take his medicine this year. In each of his 18 previous F1 seasons he’s taken at least one podium — in fact, never fewer than five — and this first campaign in red has tested that streak and his patience. He’s been frank about the difficulty, calling Ferrari’s “alien” driving style a work in progress and admitting he’s still “not 100 percent comfortable with the car.”
The slump before the summer break was stark. Q1 exits in Belgium, a Q2 exit in Hungary, and a driver who told TV cameras, “I’m useless… They probably need to change driver.” It was raw, not rehearsed. And it’s also why Monza mattered.
Across Ferrari’s home weekend, Hamilton looked calmer and cleaner. He qualified fifth, took his Zandvoort penalty on the chin to start 10th, then picked his fights smartly to finish sixth — less than five seconds behind Russell at the flag. On another day, he thought fifth was there.
“I’m happy with the progress,” Hamilton said. “From last weekend to this week, I’ve been relatively happy with the car. FP1 it felt great — probably the best. We made changes into qualifying, and I think it was the most we could get. In the race I positioned the car really nicely, made my way forwards, and I think I could’ve got fifth today. I was close to George. We missed the undercut opportunity.”
There’s some nuance inside that optimism. Hamilton’s ceiling still seems to depend on getting the Ferrari into a very specific window, a trait that’s punished him more than teammate Charles Leclerc when conditions flip. But Vasseur’s view — and the garage’s, if you read the body language — is that Hamilton’s felt sense of the car has improved. Monza’s long straights and repeated braking zones can flatter a driver who’s in rhythm, and for the first time in a while it looked like Hamilton had one with this chassis.
There’s also the very real factor of the Tifosi. Hamilton spent time in Milan in the week, and Vasseur said the reception was “mega.” You could see what it did on Sunday: fewer elbows-out rescues, more measured momentum. Ferrari fans don’t do half-volume, and the noise felt like it was pushing Hamilton rather than pressing him.
The numbers still tell a story that will bother him. Hamilton sits sixth in the standings on 117 points, one place and 46 points behind Leclerc. For a seven-time champion who built a career on relentless conversion, the deficit stings. But there’s runway left in this championship and — crucially — signs that Ferrari has stopped slipping backwards in development relative to its nearest rivals.
That’s the backdrop to Vasseur’s podium prediction. It’s not blind faith; it’s probability. If Hamilton’s baseline is now what he showed at Monza, if Ferrari keep the setup in that sweet spot more often, and if strategy stops leaving easy points on the table — see the missed undercut on Russell — then the podiums don’t require miracles, just clean weekends.
The fascinating bit is psychological. Hamilton’s season has veered from harsh self-critique to a more constructive tone in the space of two races. That tends to correlate with results in this sport, and no driver is more lethal at exploiting a rising curve than Hamilton once he trusts the car underneath him.
Ferrari won’t get carried away; there’s too much scar tissue for that. But Vasseur has put a marker down, publicly, and that can be powerful inside a team’s orbit. It sharpens focus. It sets a target. And for Hamilton — in year one, at Ferrari, under the heaviest glare in motorsport — it’s exactly the sort of challenge he tends to accept.
A podium before the flag drops on 2025? After Monza, that no longer feels like nostalgia talking. It sounds like a plan.
