Lewis Hamilton is the most successful Formula One driver in the modern era. Whilst he has equalled Michael Schumacher’s record set in 2004 of seven F1 driver titles, his number of wins and pole positions far exceeds the German maestro.
Of course since Schumacher raced in his prime, the F1 calendar is unrecognisable and has grown almost year on year until it reached its maximum allowable number of 24 race weekends last season.
Like Schumacher when he came out of retirement to join the Mercedes works team project, which was in its infancy, the last three seasons have been a wash out for Hamilton who has won just two Grand Prix in that time together with concluding his worst season since joining F1 in 2007.
The scale of the task for Hamilton
Of course Hamilton was at his best and won six of his seven titles whilst driving for Mercedes who for much of the first six or seven years had an uber dominant car. However since the introduction of the ground effect cars in 2022, Lewis has struggled to match his team mate George Russell and his qualifying form once his star quality has hit a brick wall.
Hamilton failed to make it our of Q1 no less than four times in 2024 and finished the year 19-5 down to Russell in the intra-team qualifying scores. But now the former world champion is hoping for a reset at Ferrari who themselves are on the up if recent performances are anything to go by.
With six races remaining in 2024, Ferrari sat 75 points behind McLaren, yet come the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi, that gap had been reduced to just 14 points. Yet despite this Fred Vasseur announced at the Ferrari festive bash that the 2025 would have “99% new parts.”
This is somewhat surprising given he form of the SF-24 as the season drew to an end in December, yet of course there may be some semantics in the Frenchman’s rhetoric as a number of parts may be essential the same just engineered fractionally differently.
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Ferrari bend over backwards to familiarise Lewis
The coming to Maranello of Lewis Hamilton has seen Ferrari prepare like never before in recent history. An entire familiarisation programme has been designed to endure come pre-season testing in Bahrain, Lewis has spent more than a week undertaking track activities with the race team he will work with throughout the season.
Hamilton’s first week in Maranello, saw him do meet and greet with the fans and then an introduction to the race engineers he had yet to meet. Then on Wednesday was his first drive in an F1 car coloured red as the team prepared Hamilton to understand the differences between the Mercedes powertrain and that of Ferrari.
Lewis will also get a week of testing in Barcelona next month, again not to clock up the mileage given he is restricted to just over 600m testing for the year in a previous car.
Love him or not, Hamilton has been around the paddock for the best part of two decades and his understanding of politics within the sport is second to none. For his first week with Ferrari, Lewis pulled a master stroke b y requesting group president John Elkann accompany him in his first round of meetings at he Ferrari HQ.
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Hamilton engages Ferrari group president
Elkann has been a long time admirer of the British driver and it was he who Hamilton contacted when his new Mercedes contract failed to live up to expectations. Hamilton wanted a multi-year deal with the silver arrows, yet their hard nosed lawyers managed to screw him down to just a guarantee for 2024.
It was this which sent Hamilton chasing a drive for Ferrari, even he knew his stock was high with Elkann and such a move would indubitably extend his options to remain in F1.
Elkann brokered the deal for Lewis to join the Scuderia, despite team boss Fred Vasseur saying just weeks before he intended to retain his current driver lineup of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc.
Reports in the Italian media claim the Ferrari engineers were impressed with Hamilton’s first run last Wednesday in the cold and damp low grip conditions at the Fiorano circuit.
Lewis the master of politics
Long standing Ferrari observer and writer, Antonio Ghini now suggests that Hamilton’s request for Elkann to attend during his first visit to the team was a cunning stroke of genius. “The fact that Hamilton was cunning [enough] to bring the president with him, is no small thing,” he said
“From what I saw, I understood he was very pleasant to see the few [social media] films there were. He was like a child in a toy store [Elkann].”
Of course having the head Ferrari honcho in your corner is indeed a feather in Hamilton’s cap. Yet should Lewis fail to deliver even this will not be enough to save him from the ravages of the Italian media and the tifosi.
Veteran F1 journalist and ex-driver Mike Hezemans has backed the seven times champions move to Maranello but believes it will be his last F1 drive should he get the runaround from Charles Leclerc.
‘The End” of Hamilton predicted
“Well, I actually still think the same to be honest because Lewis Hamilton was driven around the ears to be honest by Russell,” he said to RacingNews365 YouTube channel. “So staying at Mercedes does not really help. So for Ferrari, he still looked quick in the races, it was just his qualifying, that just did not work.
Hezemans suggests the move to Ferrari may give Lewis the qualifying reset he needs but warns, “if he gets driven around again by Charles Leclerc then he has a problem. Then I think it is a bit of the end of Hamilton”.
Fred Vasseur has designed a regime to ensure his new charge has all the familiarisation opportunities the team can afford him, yet the focus will quickly turn to the team’s performance and progress once pre-season testing is finished in Bahrain.
Hamilton will need to deploy all his experience to ensure he has a good start down under in Melbourne, yet his record there is not the best. His last win around the Albert Park circuit was in 2015 and his only other was back in 2008.
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Newey speaks of F1 domination 2026
Adrian Newey is an enigmatic character and like all geniuses requires a certain degree of management. His early life in Formula One whilst it brought much success, saw the aerodynamic guru take issue with the team management over various issues like reporting structures, with the result being he would leave.
This makes his nineteen year tenure at Red Bull Racing even more remarkable, yet in the end it was this very careful management of their star asset which cause Newey to decide the time was right rot move on.
There were various claims last year, that Newey’s decision was influenced by the allegations made against team principal Christian Horner of “inappropriate behaviour” by a female employee in Milton Keynes. Yet Horner was completely exonerated at both investigation stage and following the employee’s legal appeal and to characterise Newey as some moral prude would be laughable given the nature of his frequent visits to the public bar at Goodwood during the various historic motorsport events held at the estate each year…. READ MORE
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
