Last Updated on February 1 2025, 12:07 pm

The headlines during this winter season in the world of Formula One have all been Lewis Hamilton related. The SHOCK move for the save times world champion was announced around this time last season as Hamilton looked to extend his F1 career beyond the one year contract extension Mercedes finally offered the British driver.

Whether Fred Vaster believed this to be a priority is unclear, given Hamilton leveraged his relationship with Ferrari group president John Elkann who the Italian media report brokered the deal. In fact Vasseur had said just weeks earlier at the Ferrari festive celebration he would be happy to extend the contracts of both his current drivers, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.

Yet the power of the Hamilton brand and Elkann’s thirst for F1 success trumped Ferrari’s team principal’s views over the team’s driver lineup. Now the pressure is on the British driver, the first to drive for Ferrari since Nigel Mansell in the 1990’s, to recover from his worst season in the sport last year and bring the challenge to his new team mate Charles Leclerc.

 

 

 

Ferrari red carpet for Hamilton

Hamilton was crushed in qualifying 19-5 by George Russell in 2024 which for his fans is somewhat surprising since in his pomp Lewis was the quickest man over a single lap. Yet last year he failed to make it out of Q1 on four occasions and admitted in Monaco he felt he would struggle to beat George on a Saturday for the rest of the season.

Whether Vasseur was on board with the move for Hamilton or not is no longer in question given the red carpet treatment the seven times work champion has received since his arrival in Maranello. There he was greeted by thousands of fans who he spent time with signing autographs’s before his introduction to the engineers he will be working with during his tenure in Italy.

Ever the master of politics, Hamilton was given the tour of the factory in Maranello alongside Ferrari president John Elkann. Many of the workers there may never have seen the senior executive before and so his presence alongside Lewis was indeed a statement for all to read.

Vasseur has taken the unusual path of providing an extensive test programme for Hamilton, with his first outing in a damp and cold Fiorano. There Lewis complained about the position of the brakes on the Scuderia machinery, something the engineers spent a week modifying before the next outing in Barcelona. 

Testing shunt: Ferrari tutor Hamilton

 

 

 

Lewis destroys Ferrari SF-23

The sessions at the Circuit de Catalunya were private and security did their best to prevent prying eyes from observing the proceedings. Yet of course there were spy shots published of the sessions, but the eagle eyed photographers missed the most dramatic event of the week.

On the final day of running in the Catalan capital, Hamilton was offered the morning session and Leclerc wold drive in the afternoon. Yet as Lewis pushed the limits of the car eve further, he found the edge on the new high speed repofmiled final turns with their small gravel runoff areas.

No images of the car were published, but the damage was sufficient for the team to announce it cold not be repaired so Leclerc missed out on his final runs of the week. Given the team is limited to 1000km a year of previous cars testing for their full time drivers, the time can be made up for Leclerc should the team deem it necessary.

Next up for the pair is the Pirelli test next week. They and McLaren will assist F1’s tyre supplier in trying out new rubber compounds for the big regulation change coming in 2026. Given the new specification of cars next year will be 30kg lighter than the current crop, Ferrari are modifying their SF-23 to reflect this weight reduction.

New Red Bull F1 car breaks cover

 

 

 

All F1 teams will test Pirelli 2026 rubber

Now the teams are up and running with the ground effect rules introduced in 2022, they have managed to shave weight from the cars and it is expected to meet the lowered weight limit, Ferrari will merely remove the tallest from their car.

Aston Martin were the first to test the potential Pirelli 2026 tyres back in September as Pirelli boss Mario Isola confirmed all ten teams will have the opportunity to try out Pirelli’s prototypes for the following season.

McLaren who will join Ferrari in Barcelona for the Pirelli test had Oscar Piastri testing the new F1 wet weather tyres at the Paul Ricard circuit in France last week.

2026 will see the biggest change ever in F1 regulations as the FIA decided both power units and chassis would be significantly revised. Further the significant increase in performance delivered by three times more electrical power than used by the current crop of F1 cars will prove a challenge for the aerodynamicisits who must deliver both downforce in the corer’s and shed the drag along the straights.

“DIVORCE?” – Wolff surprised by Hamilton’s comments

 

 

 

2026 F1 domination less likely

To this end driver operated aero parts (other than DRS) will be introduced, yet the late nature of the FIA’s finalisation of the new regulations means the teams have less time than usual to create the new chassis and associated bodywork.

There are efforts in the new rules to reduce the bouncing of the cars which still rears its ugly head at times but guru aerodynamicist Adrian Newey is cautious over the impact of the car designs. He believes in year one at least, the sport cold be dominated by power units again. Last time this happened in 2014, Mercedes dominated for the best part of a decade.

Yet its unlikely one manufacturer will dominate as Mercedes did form 2014, given this time around the teams are restricted on the capital budget they can spend on R&D for the new power units. The spending limit is less than a tenth of the reported cash splurge by the German owned F1 team in 2014 and despite Toto Wolff’s overtures, Max Verstappen is as yet unconvinced the silver arrows can pull off a dominant power unit once again.

“I couldn’t stay” – as they abandoned Max Verstappen

 

 

 

 

Russell HUGE smash causes Albert Park changes

Former One is an ever evolving living being as from year to year different priorities take precedent depending on the headline topics of the day. Of course safety is an ever present issue and even with the huge improvements since the 1970’s and 1980’s there remain from year to year tweaks to even circuits considered amongst the most safe.

Romain Grosjean in his final year in F1 proved the day of the fireball, thought to be long gone with the advent of kevlar built fuel tanks, reminded us all that in F1 everything is possible. This incident along with Zhou Gaungu’s upturned Sauber at the first turn of the Silverstone circuit are the two biggest incidents f1 has seen in the past decade.

The French driver now in Indycar suffered the most dramatic of F1 crashes in recent memory and while his car split into two, the safety aspects of the Halo did their job orienting the barrier which intruded into the chassis from impacting with Grosjean’s head…. READ MORE