“The transfer of the century”, “A “bomb”… The departure of Lewis Hamilton from Mercedes to Ferrari for the 2025 season, revealed on February 1st just a few hours after the first rumors, was a repercussion like Formula 1 knew little about it, and he hosted the three days of testing in Bahrain.

The Briton’s future, however, seemed sealed with a contract already signed with the Silver Arrows, his second home whose colors he has worn since 2013. The temptation of a departure for Italy as the last experience of his career was visibly too much. strong. Hamilton succumbed to it like many great names in the discipline before him.

Ferrari loves and attracts superstars

Ferrari and the star drivers are a great love story, an almost natural connection between the most prestigious team in F1 and the best at the wheel. We have to go back to Ayrton Senna in the 90s to find traces of a single-seater giant who did not give in to the sirens of the Maranello team.

Lewis Hamilton continues this tradition after having been the subject of a rather discreet but diligent courtship from Ferrari for many years. In 2008, his father, also his advisor, was caught talking with the then boss of the Scuderia, Stefano Domenicali.

“A child’s dream”

By his own admission, driving for Ferrari is a “childhood dream” as he expressed it in his first reaction following his signing. “For years, whenever I came to Monza and saw the fans, I heard them say: ‘Come to Ferrari!’ Hamilton already told Sky Italia in 2021. It warms my heart and it’s quite incredible that I have never raced for Ferrari after so many years. Because it’s a dream for everyone, a goal to achieve.”

This irrepressible attraction, drivers never stop telling it, all the time, whatever their own personal performances or those of Ferrari at the same time. Quadruple world champion, Sebastian Vettel saw the challenge of joining the Scuderia as more intriguing than remaining in the comfort of victory at Red Bull. “Everyone is a Ferrari fan. he assured in 2016. “Even when people aren’t, they’re Ferrari fans.” “When you win with Ferrari, it’s magical,” added Alain Prost to the Team in March 2023. “If you flew back to Italy, they diverted Alitalia flights to let you land first, and that’s not an image.”

From Fangio to Alonso via Prost and Schumacher…

Of the most successful drivers in F1 history, almost all have worn the red colors. Of the 34 crowned drivers in the history of the discipline, almost half have one day driven – or will drive in Hamilton’s case – for the Scuderia. And of these 16 world champions who moved to Ferrari, seven were not with the Prancing Horse team, joining it after having already gleaned their first laurels.

From Juan Manuel Fangio, one of the first big stars of F1 in the 1950s, to Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso, all had won several crowns before joining the Italian team.

Wearing the rossa is no guarantee of success, as Lewis Hamilton chases eternity and a record eighth title to overtake Michael Schumacher. The German became “the Red Baron” with the Ferrari led by Jean Todt in the early 2000s, stacking up trophies at the end of a gradual reconstruction of the team. At 40 in 2025, Hamilton will probably not have the opportunity to be as patient, despite a “multi-year” contract.

Big names don’t always make big stories

“LH44” hopes to experience the same success as with Mercedes, where its arrival coincided with new technical regulations, as Formula 1 will experience an important one in 2026. A possible opportunity for the Scuderia to regain the thread of its past glory. Like Alain Prost or Nigel Mansell before them, the last big names passed by Maranello Fernando Alonso or Sebastian Vettel have broken their teeth there. Ferrari has not won a drivers’ title since Kimi Räikkönen in 2007, while its last constructors’ crown dates from a year later, in 2008.

Fifteen years later, very little consolation, the team showed itself as the only one capable of putting Red Bull’s hegemony on hold in 2023 with the victory of Carlos Sainz in Singapore, the only one that escaped the Austrian firm . What the arrival of Lewis Hamilton, as great as his record is, cannot change everything on its own.