RACING LINES
Formula 1, dull and predictable? You just never know what’s coming next. Lewis Hamilton’s sensational decision to join Ferrari for 2025 unites grand prix racing’s most successful and best-known driver with its oldest and still by far most illustrious team. It’s white-hot news – the equivalent of Lionel Messi signing for Real Madrid.
Hamilton will be 40 years old when he takes his place beside Charles Leclerc next year. As Fernando Alonso continues to prove, such age is less of a barrier than it used to be for modern athletes. But still, Hamilton has left it late to make the move, after a long F1 career exclusively powered by Mercedes.
Money is always a factor, but surely that’s not the key motivation this time. Hamilton has seven world titles and he is hell-bent on making it a record eight. That he has been willing to gamble all his chips on red can only be translated as a vote of no confidence in the team with which he won six of them. That makes the 2024 season awkward, because for now he remains a Mercedes driver.
WHY FERRARI, WHY NOW?
The most direct route to an eighth title would be for Hamilton to slide into an Adrian Newey-designed Red Bull. But that’s a non-starter while Max Verstappen remains at large at F1’s dominant team. A return to McLaren? Too risky. How about the growing force of Aston Martin? Too much of a stretch. No, Hamilton’s only realistic option was to play safe and stay ‘at home’ or head for Maranello and a reunion with the ebullient Frédéric Vasseur, his old team boss from Formula 3 and GP2.
Vasseur’s steady hand on Ferrari’s reins will absolutely be a key factor in Hamilton’s decision. Still, it says much for Hamilton’s self-belief that at this stage he is willing to go up against Leclerc, considered by many as currently F1’s fastest driver over one lap.
Why move now? That clock is ticking, and clearly he remains unconvinced by the rebuild project Mercedes is currently undertaking – before the new W15 has even turned a wheel.
The team fell hard and fast two years ago with an ambitious concept for its first car under F1’s swingeing rules reset, then refused to change tack for 2023 – and suffered the humiliation of finally having to admit that it was going in the wrong direction.
Still, in August last year, Hamilton seemed convinced Mercedes could rediscover its mojo with an all-new technical concept. He signed a two
