Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari, contract value, what to expect, preview
January 20: Lewis Hamilton is in a Mafia-style three-piece suit with a black trench draped over his shoulders — a stark contrast from the quirky, high fashion pieces he’s become synonymous with.
Behind him, under the grey Maranello sky, rests one of the great cultural icons of his generation, and the last car ever made under motoring supremo Enzo Ferrari; an F40.
Hamilton’s face and posture rest easy, portraying a man at peace in front of the ultimate symbol of 1980s and 1990s childhood fantasy.
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They betray the giddiness that surely exists beneath the surface, for Hamilton stands as a newly-turned 40-year-old man whose ultimate boyhood pipe dream has come to life.
The scene is as wholesome as it is instantly-iconic for any F1 fan.
There’s magic in seeing a seven-time world champion unite with the world’s most culturally significant motorsport brand for what is the biggest driver move in F1’s history.
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What’s more extraordinary, however, is seeing how that union has turned an ice-cold killer on the track to a kid in a candy store.
But as sure as night comes after day, the intoxicating, feel-good aura will one-day stop emanating from Hamilton’s arrival at Ferrari.
After all, history tells us he’s stepping into the ultimate sink-or-swim environment.
When does that aura give way and, more importantly, what does it give way to?
A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN
It says everything about the enduring, gravitational force of Ferrari that maybe the greatest driver of all time was at least as eager to join the team as it was to sign him.
Seemingly, no driver is above the intense allure of a red, fast car with a prancing horse on it — not even the all-conquering Hamilton.
This is despite the fact that Ferrari has not produced a world championship-winning driver since Kimi Raikkonen in 2007, while 2008 was the last time it was F1’s premiere constructor.
Ferrari’s barren years in F1 are as shocking as they are long-lasting.
No team in F1’s history has been more successful than the Italian outfit, whose last golden stretch saw it win the constructors’ championship eight times in 10 years around the turn of the century.
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The 2025 Formula 1 season starts this weekend at Albert Park, where Oscar Piastri will be the best-placed Aussie in years to break our home-race podium curse. Can he get it done? Michael and Matt also check in on blockbuster opening rounds of the Supercars and MotoGP seasons.
Fifteen times has Ferrari powered the winner of the drivers’ championship — three more times than McLaren, and six more than Mercedes. The wins stretch from 1952 to 2007, while Ferrari won the constructors’ championship at least once in every decade from the 1960s to the 2000s.
And yet, despite its might and racing pedigree, 2025 threatens to be Ferrari’s 17th-consecutive season without winning either F1 title.
Strategy bungles, driver errors, development mishandlings, management crises and, sometimes, just bad luck litter the better part of two decades of Ferrari history.
The team remains in the grip of the driest spell it has ever endured in F1.
None of this, however, meant anything to Hamilton when Ferrari called him in December 2023.
They presented him with the opportunity of a lifetime that went well beyond the rumoured A$100m-a-year deal that was on the table.
“I remember getting off the phone and, like, almost shaking,” Hamilton recalled.
“I was like, holy s***! I literally just signed (a one-year extension) with Mercedes.
“It was a lot to take in and my emotions were really high. So I honestly had to go for a walk.”
It seems that at some underlying level, everyone who is lucky enough to make it to the F1 grid daydreams about whether they could do it in a red car.
Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel was just as giddy as Hamilton when he made his own bombshell switch to Ferrari, leaving Red Bull for the 2015 season.
“Everyone is a Ferrari fan,” he once said. “Even if they say they’re not, they are Ferrari fans.”
He was hardly the only world champion recruit for Ferrari to gush about the team during his stay.
In the hunt for a third title, Fernando Alonso explained in 2014 how winning with Ferrari “will mean more than winning with another team.”
It’s only a matter of time before Hamilton utters similar sentiment with the Briton saying he’s a man revitalised having now spent four seasons staring at Max Verstappen’s rear wing.
This is a match made in heaven after all, with Hamilton and Ferrari being F1’s most formidable individual and team brands respectively — and the emotions are clearly running high.
“I’ve been lucky enough to have many firsts in my career, from the first test to the first race, podium, win and championship, so I wasn’t sure how many more firsts I had,” Hamilton said after his first test in a Ferrari.
“But driving a Scuderia Ferrari car for the first time this morning was one of the best feelings of my life.
“When I started the car up and drove through that garage door, I had the biggest smile on my face. It reminded me of the very first time I tested a Formula 1 car, it was such an exciting and special moment, and here I am, almost 20 years later, feeling those emotions all over again.”
A CAUTIONARY TALE
In assessing Ferrari’s signing of Hamilton, the Formula 1 website described the coup as having to “go down as one of the greatest achievements in the outfit’s history”.
If things that sound too good to be true often are, then you might wonder, ‘what’s the catch?’
This partnership could well bear fruit and send Hamilton off into the sunset with an incredible legacy piece that will live through the ages.
But it’s impossible to ignore the history — one that deems it more likely for a gruelling reality to settle in under the weight of crippling expectation.
Ferrari is a pressure-cooker like no other.
For starters, Ferrari has the biggest worldwide fanbase, and second isn’t even close. Expectations run high at two home races (Imola and Monza), not just one.
Meanwhile, the rich history, immense success and sparkling pedigree of the Ferrari brand hovers over the garage as a burdensome reminder to those who step through it that they, too, are expected to contribute to the fairy tale.
True that, in 2025, the fabled culture of fearlessness and perfectionism that was cultivated under the ruthless rule of Enzo Ferrari has started to fade. But whether it’s in the churn of underperforming team bosses, or drivers, it’s clear that lingering threads still tie today’s Ferrari to that of its so-called glory years.
An extra layer of pressure simply exists inside the four walls of Maranello — and that’s without even mentioning the title drought.
Given Hamilton’s unprecedented success in F1, and mega-money contract, it stands to reason that he could feel this pressure more than any Ferrari driver to have come before him.
Other greats have been burnt under the same spotlight. Recently, too.
Vettel serves as the most obvious cautionary tale. Like Hamilton, Vettel joined Ferrari as a multiple world champion who had been knocked off his perch.
He arrived with plenty of good feeling and things trended in the right direction, well into the 2018 season when he appeared to be in the ascendancy.
But the burden of being the driver who would end Ferrari’s long wait for a title winner weighed heavily. Vettel’s season was characterised by several avoidable incidents. None were bigger than his season-defining crash from the lead of the German Grand Prix when he was under no real threat.
He was never truly the same.
Alonso’s stay at Ferrari felt equally cursed. The Spaniard was sure to win the title in his first season in 2010, but a poor strategy call in the season finale opened the door to Vettel snatching the crown from under everyone’s nose.
Two years later, Alonso led the championship with just six races to go but — like Vettel would years later — made a costly error that ended in a DNF. He went on to lose the championship by just three points, and his Ferrari career trended downwards from there until he left after two more fruitless seasons.
Big-name recruits failing to pull off the fairy tale result isn’t a recent phenomenon either.
Nigel Mansell’s sole world championship in 1992 came after a switch from two mediocre years at Ferrari, while Alain Prost’s own ill-fated, two-year stay was bookended by world championships elsewhere.
The strength of Michael Schumacher’s reign at Ferrari makes it easier to forget that either side of it exists lengthy struggles.
Heaping more pressure still on Hamilton is the fact that he’s replacing a driver who performed well last season, despite knowing he was already being forced out the door.
Carlos Sainz last year won two races, and likely would’ve finished in fourth above Oscar Piastri in the standings had he not missed a race due to appendicitis.
Considered a talented driver in his own right, and a valuable asset at the development table, Sainz was squeezed out to make way for Hamilton without ever having the chance to truly realise his full potential at the team.
Former F1 team boss Eddie Jordan was brutal in his assessment of the decision when speaking on the Formula For Success podcast.
“For me, I think the FFS moment of the year was Lewis signing to Ferrari. I just never saw that coming,” Jordan said.
“I say to John Elkann, who’s the chairman of that group, what the f**k was he thinking about in getting rid of Carlos, when he had a very happy, friendly, structured team that knew how to work together?
“It was absolutely suicidal to get rid of Carlos.”
Former F1 owner Bernie Ecclestone was also critical of Hamilton’s signing, offering the 40-year-old an ominous warning, along with an equally-ominous prediction about his two-year contract.
“He won’t last that long,” Ecclestone told The Telegraph. “I hope they (Ferrari) haven’t just jumped in and end up wishing they hadn’t.”
“I don’t think Lewis will get the same attention at Ferrari. Firstly, the team are happy with Charles Leclerc, his teammate. Leclerc speaks their language, so they’ll be looking after him.
“Even if Lewis does well, there’ll still be a lot of enemies, because he has suddenly arrived.”
WHAT TO EXPECT
Hamilton is certainly talking the talk.
He described himself as feeling “like a new life has been given” to him, while his excitement has him also learning Italian in a bid to better-adjust to the team environment.
“I guess I want people to know that I’m willing to go above and beyond to be able to blend in and to contribute to my fullest potential,” Hamilton said of why he’s learning Italian.
Also helping Hamilton’s transition is the fact that team principal Frederic Vasseur was his boss during title-winning seasons in Formula 3 and GP2 two decades ago.
And yet, none of this will afford Hamilton a soft landing Ferrari.
Though it may not look like it through all the happy snaps and gushing tributes, he’s been on the clock since he walked through the door at Marenello.
Hamilton does not arrive at Ferrari at a low ebb for the team, but rather during a promising upswing that saw it only narrowly lose last year’s constructors’ championship to McLaren.
Now into the final year of this set of technical regulations, Ferrari is expected to challenge again, albeit with McLaren as favourite, Mercedes experiencing something of a resurgence, and with Red Bull still firmly in the mix.
And the title window is perilously tight with no certainties about what team lands where after the regulation slate is wiped clean for 2026.
Hamilton will simply have to perform well, almost immediately.
Adding to this pressure will be highly-rated teammate Leclerc, who Hamilton will be expected to at least match.
Should he fail to do that, and Leclerc emerges as a title threat, then Hamilton could be swiftly relegated to No.2 status — a role you won’t find in any driver’s Ferrari fantasy.
Sky Sports pundit and former driver Martin Brundle believes Hamilton has only a matter of weeks to get up to speed.
“He’s got to do that. He’s got to use his experience,” Brundle said.
“There are no excuses at this level for anybody, even the rookies, but you might give the rookies half a season to get their act together, maximum.
“They will expect somebody like Lewis to have aced the people around him and the car within two or three races, to be honest.”
Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner believes Hamilton may have longer before the honeymoon is over, but still only gives him six months.
“Then the pressure will start to come and the criticism,” he added. “Everything he does will be second-guessed and questioned.
“But you’ve got a period of time where you can make it work, and you just need to focus on that to make it work.”
Either way, it will be no easy feat for someone whose only Ferrari experience is a shakedown and one-and-a-half days of testing. Especially if Hamilton’s experience is anything like that of Sainz’s, who will race for Williams after being replaced at Ferrari.
“It feels weird that I got my day-and-a-half and now I need to go racing. It feels not enough,” Sainz said after the pre-season test.
“Feels very little – ridiculously little – the amount of time that we get into our cars before going to a race.”
Hamilton, however, isn’t just any driver. He’s one of immense talent and experience — only Alonso has raced in F1 more — that could help him make a speedy transition.
Through a different lens, however, you could argue that spending 12 seasons at one team could’ve deeply ingrained certain driving characteristics, or cultural preferences, that will be harder to break. This is something Daniel Ricciardo could never do after five seasons at Red Bull.
Only time will tell how swiftly Hamilton acclimatises to the Ferrari garage, but he is at least likely to have a car that allows him to make a quick impression. Ferrari is only chasing marginal gains this year, chiefly in aero upgrades that will allow it to perform better at high downforce circuits, such as Barcelona and Silverstone where it was weakest last season.
The likelihood of any team entering a full-scale development arms race in 2025, given the seismic scale of next year’s regulation changes, is unlikely.
Ferrari will compete for wins, and compete often.
As such, the rigours of a furiously competitive 2025 season linger just around the corner, ensuring Hamilton’s honeymoon period at Ferrari will be short-lived.
Whether the honeymoon gives way to the resumption of his boyhood fantasy, or it spirals into a familiar Ferrari nightmare, decides whether his signing is the ultimate legacy move for team and driver, or an unfortunate career footnote for the latter.
