With the change of a profile picture came the start of a new era.
Wearing an oversized yellow race suit and a big, red helmet, Lewis Hamilton — as a child — worked the wheel of his go-kart, emblazoned with his now-iconic number 44 on the front.
To see Hamilton in red is unusual. It was in go-karting that he started to use a bright yellow helmet so his father could better spot him in large racing packs, which he kept using for much of his career at McLaren and, from 2013, with Mercedes.
The throwback picture, posted on Instagram and X, was a nod from Hamilton to the new chapter in his long, success-filled F1 story, spanning seven world championship wins and is now entering its 19th season.
As of January 1, he is officially a Scuderia Ferrari driver. A dream held by so many but experienced by so few.
In the weeks after announcing the shock news at the start of February last year, Hamilton explained how he’d always wondered what it might be like to race the red cars someday. He’d even driven as Michael Schumacher while playing video games as a teenager, which always seemed to be the closest he would get to being a Ferrari driver.
But Mercedes’ reluctance to give him a long-term contract beyond 2024, combined with the door opening at Maranello as Carlos Sainz’s contract ended, paved the way for Hamilton to make the jump.
Ferrari will be just the third F1 team that Hamilton has raced for, meaning the kind of adjustment he is about to go through will be a strange one — one that he has not experienced in over a decade since he departed McLaren at the end of 2012. And that hardly carried anything like the emotion felt in his final appearance for Mercedes in Abu Dhabi.
The awkward nature of Hamilton’s final 11 months with Mercedes, racing the entire season knowing he would leave at the end of the year, can now give way to the excitement of getting the Ferrari project up and running. While he admitted to keeping an eye on Ferrari’s progress through 2024 as it fell just 14 points shy of a first constructors’ title since 2008, Hamilton’s focus had to remain on his outstanding commitments at Mercedes. The same was true for Ferrari, with team principal Fred Vasseur explaining last month he had been “cautious” in his contact with Hamilton throughout the year.
That all changes with the new year. Once Hamilton finishes his winter break — a second photo posted to his Instagram Stories showed him wearing a ski mask on the slopes — he can start embedding himself within the Ferrari project for 2025.
Hamilton’s first Ferrari test
The first time Hamilton dons the famous red Ferrari colors and gets behind the wheel of one of its F1 cars will be the moment he has longed for throughout his career. It is also set to be a relatively low-key event.
Instead of taking place in front of the world’s media at the start of collective pre-season testing in Bahrain at the end of February, Hamilton’s Ferrari bow is planned to occur behind closed doors at a private test. All teams are permitted to complete private testing throughout the year, albeit adhering to strict restrictions, including the cars that can be used. No extensive testing of the current-year car is allowed outside of pre-season testing or race weekends, but teams can complete running in recent machinery.
Under the Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) regulations, teams can only use cars “designed and constructed in order to comply with the technical regulations of any of the three calendar years falling immediately prior to the calendar year preceding the year of the championship.” That means Ferrari can use its 2021, 2022 or 2023 cars for Hamilton’s first test. As the 2021 car was under the old cycle of regulations (before the return of ground effect aerodynamics) and therefore performs differently, it is logical that either the 2022 or 2023 car will be used.
Ferrari uses Fiorano, the private test track at its Maranello headquarters, for testing.(Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images)
While there won’t be a total correlation with what Hamilton will find in the 2025 Ferrari car, he will at least have a chance to adjust to the team’s systems, like the steering wheel functions, and meet his new colleagues. Hamilton can also use Ferrari’s simulator at Maranello for the same purpose and try out a version of the new car, even if nothing quite replicates the real thing.
Vasseur was reluctant to provide firm details on when or where Hamilton would complete his first Ferrari test, simply saying the team would “have the occasion to do a TPC or Pirelli test day.” In recent years, Ferrari has used Fiorano, the private test track at its Maranello headquarters, for its TPC runs.
Getting ready for 2025
Hamilton’s first public appearance as a Ferrari driver looks likely to come at the F1 75 Live season launch event at The O2 in London on Feb. 18. Designed to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the F1 world championship, the event will see all 10 teams present their drivers and liveries for the season on-stage before the start of testing eight days later in Bahrain.
Ferrari has planned its own car launch at Maranello for Feb. 19, one day after the event at The O2, where its 2025 model will get its first on-track outing. Although teams cannot complete private testing with this year’s cars, they are allowed to conduct two “promotional events,” also known as filming days, per year that are capped at 200km of running. Teams will often use one of these days to complete a shakedown with their new car before the start of pre-season testing.
Once testing begins, Hamilton can get fully up to speed with the new Ferrari car. He will split the three days of running at the Bahrain International Circuit from Feb. 26-28 with teammate Charles Leclerc, with no mileage limits within each day’s schedule.
One-and-a-half days is not a lot of time to get to grips with a new car. Although Vasseur said last month he was “not worried” given Hamilton’s vast experience and ability, he acknowledged it was a challenge.
“If you imagine that you go to Bahrain and you have the sandstorm as we had a couple of years ago, it’s tough, but it’s tough for everybody on the grid,” Vasseur said. “We know that we have only three days there. It is like it is.”
Following the completion of pre-season testing in Bahrain, Ferrari’s focus will shift to making its final preparations for Hamilton’s debut at the Australian Grand Prix on March 16. With just 1 percent of the parts from last year’s Ferrari carrying over to the 2025 model, according to Vasseur, there’ll be plenty for the team to try and understand about the new car despite the stability in the regulations.
British Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton takes part in a farewell event for the Mercedes F1 Team at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre in Kuala Lumpur on December 10, 2024, before he races with Ferrari next season. (MOHD RASFAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Away from the race track
In Hamilton, Ferrari has not only signed the driver with more race wins and pole positions than anyone else in F1 history. It also has one of the most vocal and public figures the sport has ever known.
Hamilton’s fame has transcended F1. In October, he was named as a co-chair for the 2025 Met Gala, something he called a “real honor and privilege,” and he also became an ambassador for Dior Men late last year. Driving for F1’s most famous team will only further boost Hamilton’s already considerable profile, which he seeks to use for good.
Hamilton has stated that the greatest part of his F1 legacy will be his efforts to improve diversity and inclusion. It was a core part of his relationship with Mercedes over the past five years, jointly launching the charity Ignite in partnership with Hamilton’s Mission 44 campaign, as well as the team’s own in-house Accelerate 25 scheme that has targeted, so far with success, more than 25 percent of new hires from 2021 to the end of 2025 being from underrepresented backgrounds.
Continuing that work with Ferrari is important to Hamilton. Speaking last February, Hamilton said the team had “a lot of work to do” but that he had “already made that a priority” when speaking with Ferrari president John Elkann. “They’re super excited to get on and work on it also,” Hamilton said. Laying those foundations as he begins life with the team will matter to Hamilton.
When the lights go out for his Ferrari debut in Australia, Hamilton will also want to bounce back and rediscover some of his old spark after struggling through much of his final season for Mercedes. Although he managed to snap his win drought with victories at Silverstone and Spa, Hamilton struggled to gel with the car, particularly over a single lap, causing him to slump to seventh in the championship — the lowest finish of his F1 career.
2025 will, therefore, not only be the start of an exciting new chapter for Hamilton and Ferrari but also a necessary reset for one of the sport’s all-time greats as he looks to fulfill the promise of his dream move to Maranello.
Top photo of Lewis Hamilton: HOCH ZWEI/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
