Lewis Hamilton brought F1 glory back to Ferrari, but Italians still want Kimi Antonelli in red

Antonelli with Italian flag wrapped around him in Mercedes race suit holding up one finger to demonstrate race win at Monaco GP — Photo: © IMAGO

Ferrari F1

Lewis Hamilton brought glory back to Ferrari, but Italians still want Kimi Antonelli in red

An Italian winning in red is a beautiful sight

Chris Deeley

Thursday 18 June 2026 13:58

Want to hear something surprising? An Italian columnist has been dramatic about Ferrari and F1.

In other news, water is wet, and the sky continues to be...well, this branch of GPFans Towers is in West Yorkshire, so the sky continues to be grey. In another, better place, the sky would continue to be blue.

This piece of drama is a delight though, written by award-winning author Francesco Piccolo for La Repubblica this week after Lewis Hamilton broke his and Ferrari's winless streaks in Barcelona.

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Italians, he claims, want something to support – want to back a winning horse, no matter who it is. That's why Ferrari's F1 team became the icon that it did, because while Italian drivers don't win many races (27 total since the start of the 1960s), the Italian team very much does.

However, in the grand old year of 2026, that's changing fast. Kimi Antonelli is, astonishingly, on pace this season to become the Italian driver with the most F1 wins by the end of the year.

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Kimi Antonelli at Ferrari: an Italian dream

"It was in our best interests to support Ferrari," Piccolo wrote. "It was like that for many years, but now we’re in a quandary, because an Italian driver has won four consecutive Grand Prix races, and we were just beginning to convince ourselves that, deep down, an Italian driver is like Sinner, like Federica Pellegrini - and just as we’d almost made up our minds, Hamilton wins the Grand Prix in a Ferrari, reopening the debate about victory. And we think: what if we abandon Ferrari, and then Ferrari wins?"

There is, of course, a solution provided at the conclusion. Italian fans will no longer feel at war with themselves while watching F1...if Antonelli joins Ferrari.

Simple!

"It can’t be resolved straight away," he continued, "so we’ll have to put up with the Italian driver or the Italian car for a while longer, but from next season we’re all dreaming that Kimi Antonelli will drive for Ferrari and that’ll be the end of it (and, above all, that they’ll win together - otherwise we won’t watch Formula 1 any more).

"For this year, however, we can consider another solution: deciding that both the driver and the car are just fine. And at the moment, these are the only two solutions on the horizon for the overall world championship victory. In short, whether it’s one or the other, we always win. We’ve even managed it with wars - can’t we do the same with Formula 1?"

Obviously none of this is a serious suggesting that a move's on the cards, but...really, just go read the full column. It's a work of art.

F1 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari Kimi Antonelli