By Alan Baldwin
IMOLA, Italy (Reuters) – Formula One’s European season kicks off at Imola on Sunday with Lewis Hamilton racing in Italy for the first time as a Ferrari driver while local teen hero Kimi Antonelli makes his home debut with Mercedes.
Even if champions McLaren take their sixth win in seven races, with Lando Norris hoping to cut teammate Oscar Piastri’s lead, there will be some notable firsts when Imola hosts the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix.
Argentine Franco Colapinto will be back in the spotlight as he takes the place of Australian Jack Doohan with a first appearance for Renault-owned Alpine after nine races with Williams at the end of last year.
Then, he made his debut at Monza and he now starts again at Italy’s other current F1 circuit.
Alpine, in their first race since team principal Oliver Oakes surprisingly resigned, will be looking for Colapinto to repeat his scoring exploits rather than the costly crashes that have also accompanied him.
Hamilton has had a tough start to life at Maranello, despite winning the Shanghai sprint race, and appears to have undergone a general reset ahead of Imola — named after Enzo Ferrari and son Dino — by removing distractions on social media.
The seven-times world champion, who joined Ferrari in January, has 39.5 million followers on Instagram but is no longer following anybody — including Ferrari and his dog Roscoe.
Ferrari are fourth overall, already 152 points behind McLaren, with a lone third place for Charles Leclerc in Jeddah the only podium place they have to show for their efforts in regular grands prix.
Record race winner Hamilton, whose 105 career victories include one at Imola in 2020, has yet to finish higher than fifth this season and lags Antonelli in the standings.
The excitement around Antonelli has only grown since his debut, with the Italian now the youngest driver to lead a race, set a fastest lap and take a pole position in any format.
“He grew up nearby in Bologna, and it will be a special occasion for him,” said team boss Toto Wolff. “But it’s a race that pays 25 points, like every other, and that’s the only thing that counts at the end of the season,”
McLaren boss Andrea Stella, also Italian, will be hoping for a happy homecoming as he leads the champions to Ferrari’s backyard and the start of a run of three races on successive weekends.
Piastri leads Norris by 16 points after four wins, including the last three in a row, with Red Bull’s reigning champion Max Verstappen — winner of the last three races in Imola — 32 points off the pace in third.
Most teams are expected to bring some sort of an upgrade after the opening round of races far from the European factories but McLaren remain the favourites.
“We’re back into Europe,” said Red Bull boss Christian Horner. “Different types of circuit, different nature of circuit. McLaren have got the car to beat at the moment, that’s quite clear.
“They’re going to be tough to beat over the next few races.”
Monaco, the weekend after Imola, will see a change with a new mandatory second pitstop, while Spain is the first race with tougher tests for flexing front wings — with some seeing that as a potential game-changer.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Peter Rutherford)
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