Lewis Hamilton’s decision to move from Mercedes to Ferrari is as intriguing as it is seismic in its significance, especially if it’s one in which heart has ruled head
ALEX KALINAUCKAS
Apologies to Tazio Nuvolari and Auto Union fans, and to those who fondly remember Michael Schumacher switching from Benetton to Ferrari for 1996 after winning two world titles on the trot, but there’s a case to be made that Lewis Hamilton heading to Maranello for 2025 is the biggest motorsport driver move ever. Ferrari remains F1’s most evocative and successful squad; Hamilton’s fame transcends the championship.
The parallels with Hamilton’s exit from McLaren over a decade ago, when the V6 turbo hybrid era was set to arrive one year into his Mercedes tenure, are obvious. Today, the 2026 regulation changes are no longer far over the horizon. Yet, this time, the risks of a move are different for Hamilton. Back in 2012, the question was whether an untested and even openly doubted Mercedes squad could ever provide Hamilton with title-winning machinery, as he’d enjoyed at McLaren. His Ferrari switch should therefore initially be viewed as equally sideways, given how close Mercedes and Ferrari were – far in the wake of Max Verstappen – in 2023. But the first risk for Hamilton is that, in the short term, it works out as a backwards step from his clear goal of an eighth world title.
After all, there’s been a markedly different approach in Mercedes’ and Ferrari’s positions on their respective 2024 cars. Mercedes technical director James Allison stated that his team feels “some of the more spiteful characteristics of the rear end of our car” have now been eradicated in the W15. Should the car become a challenger to Red Bull, then Hamilton faces another short-term risk: that he will be isolated at his current team.
Meanwhile, Ferrari technical director Enrico Cardile ended 2023 by saying that “suspension set-up to me is a bit overrated”. This is a staggering statement, given how open Red Bull has been about that element being key to its cars’ being so good in the current formula, and offered a clue into what to expect from Ferrari’s SF-24 design in this area… Unless he was attempting to mislead, it’ll be ‘don’t expect much change’.
Running through all this, however, is Hamilton’s call to abandon Mercedes in the first place. This is ultimately a vote of no confidence in its potential. Yet Ferrari lacks any title since its 2008 constructors’ crown, its great starts in 2017, 2018
