Inside Lewis Hamilton’s First Day as a New Ferrari Driver
After 12 seasons with Mercedes and six seasons before that with McLaren, seven-time F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton announced last year that he would be joining Ferrari for the 2025 season and fulfilling a lifelong dream by racing for the greatest constructor of them all. This week, Hamilton spent his official first day with the team in Maranello for a meet-and-greet with team members, a visit to Enzo Ferrari’s office, and, most importantly, a photo with a Ferrari F40.
The F40 is one of the greatest sports cars of all time and also Hamilton’s favorite supercar, which puts him in pretty crowded company. Ferrari described the weather in Maranello this week as overcast and drizzly, like in Britain, where Hamilton was born. Perhaps a good omen. Hamilton stood for photo ops with the F40 and also met with Team Principal Fred Vasseur, Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna, and Piero Ferrari, son of Enzo. Next was a “daylong total immersion program,” followed by more technical meetings tomorrow.
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For a racecar driver with such famous attention to detail, the meetings may have been the best part.
“There are some days that you know you’ll remember forever and today, my first as a Scuderia Ferrari HP driver, is one of those days,” Hamilton said in a statement. “I’ve been lucky enough to have achieved things in my career I never thought possible, but part of me has always held on to that dream of racing in red. I couldn’t be happier to realize that dream today.”
Ferrari finished second in the constructor’s standings last year after strong drives from Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, with the latter driver moving on to Williams this year to make way for Hamilton. This sets the stage for what Ferrari hopes will be a pairing of decorated drivers—Leclerc and Hamilton—that will win them their first Constructor’s Championship since 2008. For Hamilton, the goal is an eighth driver’s world championship, which would see him surpass Michael Schumacher for most all time.
Max Verstappen and Lando Norris might have something to say about that, and probably Hamilton’s teammate Leclerc as well. Hamilton knows as well as anyone that the real work is just beginning.
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