As a child, Lewis Hamilton idolised Michael Schumacher, even pretending to be the German icon in a video game. Now, having agreed to join Ferrari next season, he is hoping to emulate his childhood hero — for real.
Hamilton, who turns 40 next year, will end a spell with Mercedes that began in 2013. The move was a surprise to the team principal, Toto Wolff, who described him as “family”, but the allure of the famous prancing horse proved too strong for Hamilton to pass up.
“Growing up, watching the history, watching Michael Schumacher in his prime, I think probably all of us sit in our garage, see the screen pop up, and you see the driver in the red cockpit and you wonder what it might be like to be surrounded by the red,” Hamilton said.
“You go to the Italian Grand Prix, and you see the sea of red of Ferrari fans, and you can only stand in awe of that.
“It’s a team that’s not had huge success, really, since Michael’s days. I saw it as a huge challenge. Even as a kid I used to play on [the video game] GP2 as Michael in that car so it definitely is a dream, and I’m really, really excited about it.”
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Ferrari have not supplied a world champion since Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 and not won a constructors’ title since 2008.
Hamilton has never visited Maranello, their base, but bought his first Ferrari, the 599 GTO, in 2010 as a present to himself. He hopes to learn Italian, having picked up “a few lines” of the language from his time in Italy while karting as a youngster.
The seven-times world champion’s move to Ferrari accelerated during the winter break. That much is apparent from how, rather awkwardly, in the newly released Netflix Drive to Survive series, Hamilton says: “It just never feels like there is going to be a time where I’m not a Mercedes driver. It is my home, it is my family.”
Frédéric Vasseur, the Ferrari team principal, was key in selling the project to Hamilton, having joined the team in January last year after a period under his predecessor, Mattia Binotto, that was plagued by reliability issues and questionable strategy calls. Vasseur led Ferrari and Carlos Sainz to victory in Singapore last season, the only non-Red Bull driver to have won a race in 2023.
“I’ve got a great relationship with Fred,” Hamilton said. “I raced for him in Formula 3 and we had amazing success, and that’s really where the foundation for our relationship started. We just always remained in touch, and I thought he was going to be an amazing team manager at some stage and progress to Formula 1, but at the time he wasn’t interested in that.
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“It was pretty cool to see him step into the Alfa [Romeo] team and then when he got the job at Ferrari I was so happy for him. I think the stars just aligned, it really wouldn’t have happened without him and I’m just really grateful and really excited about the work he’s doing there.”
Hamilton emphasised that the decision to leave Mercedes was the most difficult one he has ever made, but that he believes the time will be right to start a new chapter — although, only after finishing strongly for a team with whom he won six of his seven world titles. “I am still 100 per cent focused on delivering for this team [Mercedes] this year and trying to finish on a high,” he said. “That’s a big, big goal for me and the team. I have absolute faith in everyone in the team and what we’ve done so far is great, so I really hope that we are somehow able to close the gap to the Red Bulls.”
Hamilton’s chances of ending on a high, however, have been dampened by the belief from almost the entire paddock, even a week before the season begins here in Bahrain, that Red Bull have maintained their advantage from last season — or potentially even increased it.
Max Verstappen produced the quickest time on the first day of testing. Sainz beat that marker by 1.4 seconds on day two, but that was on the C4 soft-compound tyre, whereas the Red Bull driver set his time with the harder (and usually slower) C3.
“If it would have been worse than [the car last year] then we did a very bad job,” Verstappen said. “For sure the car is better than last year’s car, but everyone on the grid has a better car than last year. Overall it was a very good first day. I couldn’t really wish for more.”
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Day three of testing was disrupted by another drain cover becoming dislodged from its kerb at turn 11, a few yards further up the track than the one which caused the same issue on Thursday.
Charles Leclerc registered the quickest lap of 1min 30.322 sec on C4 tyres, when the action eventually resumed an hour later. George Russell and Zhou Guanyu were second and third fastest, with Verstappen in fourth.
It is difficult to draw completely accurate conclusions from testing because of the different variables each team are exploring, including tyre compounds, fuel load and power unit output. The true pace of each team and driver will be revealed next week, in practice sessions and qualifying before the race in Bahrain on March 2.
