The Scuderia Ferrari HP duo of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc fought their way up the order in an exciting and action-packed race, making up eight and five places respectively.

Lewis came home in fourth place, with Charles sixth, bringing home 20 points for the team. On a track where overtaking is far from easy, the SF-25 proved to have good race pace on the both the Medium and Hard compound tyres.

After a poor qualifying, the team took an aggressive approach to the race, splitting the strategies between the two drivers, with Charles starting from 11th on Medium tyres and Lewis from 12th on Hards. Leclerc did well in the opening stages, passing Isack Hadjar and Pierre Gasly. He was ninth until lap 10 when the team pitted him for Hard tyres and to put him out in clean air. The move paid off and he was able to undercut several cars, getting up to eighth, thanks also to a strong pace. The Virtual Safety Car was required on lap 29 when Esteban Ocon parked at the side of the track and at this point the team brought Lewis in to switch from Hard to Medium tyres, while Charles also pitted to take on another set of Hards to go to the end of the race. At the restart, Hamilton was seventh and Leclerc tenth. On fresh rubber, the SF-25s passed both the Aston Martins, Kimi Antonelli and Hadjar, rapidly moving up to fifth and sixth places. On lap 46, Antonelli had to park at the side of the track in a position from which it was difficult to have the car removed and so the Safety Car was brought into play. The team therefore called Hamilton in to put him back out on Hards again, as it only cost half the usual time. He rejoined seventh, while Charles stayed out in fourth place. At the restart, Lewis made good use of his new tyres to pass George Russell and set off in pursuit of Alex Albon, who was fighting with Charles. On lap 60, the Thai driver managed to get alongside Leclerc at the first chicane, but Charles was vigorous in defence and the Williams cut the first chicane, which allowed Hamilton to slip past. Lewis then got ahead of his team-mate to take fourth place. For the last two laps, he then pursued third placed Oscar Piastri who was on old tyres, but the Australian was able to hang on. Charles was then asked by the team to give back position to Albon after the move at the first chicane, which was under investigation, as any penalty could have cost him several places.

Tonight, the team returns to Maranello, but it won't be spending much time at Via Enzo Ferrari 27. Round 8 takes place next Sunday in Monaco, Charles Leclerc's home race.

Lewis Hamilton: Today I felt much more at one with the car, something I'd been chasing since the Sprint in China. Everything came together: the strategy, the pit stops, the balance, it all worked in harmony and allowed us to recover strongly from our qualifying position.

There's still work to do, especially over one lap, but if we can keep building on days like this, we'll be in the mix for podiums. Grazie mille tifosi: your support means the world and I hope we made you proud today.

Charles Leclerc: In some races, things just don't align and today, that was the case for me. We were really unlucky with the timing of the VCS and SC. I couldn't take advantage of the first one, and during the second, we didn't have the right tyres available, but I've got no regrets on this score. P6 is not that bad considering how difficult a weekend it has been for us, but this is not the result we are aiming for. Our real focus has to be on improving our qualifying performance, because in the race, the car is fast. Heading to Monaco now, we expect it to be a challenging weekend. It's a circuit that will expose our car's weaknesses. It is very specific and you have to run the car differently than anywhere else, so I hope we will capitalise on that and bring home the best result possible.

Fred Vasseur: The positive side of today was that our pace was strong from start to finish. We had a good strategy and the pit stops were well executed. Of course, there is some frustration because if we had qualified better, we could have finished higher up the order. It's been three or four races now where we have seen this difference between quali and race pace. We must work on that, but I believe that today's result was the best we could hope for. Lewis drove a very solid race, always running at a strong pace, pulling off some nice overtakes. As for Charles, the Virtual and real Safety Cars did him no favours and I can understand his frustration. But at the time the Safety Car came out, there were still too many laps to go to fit the Softs and I think leaving him out on the Hards was the right decision. In the closing stages, we asked Charles to give back position to Alex Albon, because it was very close and if he had been given a penalty, we would have lost four or five places.

Check out our Sunday gallery from Imola here.