Lewis Hamilton will drive Ferrari in the Formula 1 World Championship “from 2025, with a multi-year contract”. The Maranello team announced it.
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The real market coup comes where football doesn’t reign. Lewis Hamilton, the iconic driver of Formula 1, winning, histrionic, also at the forefront of major social issues, not only for Black Lives Matter, is preparing to wear the red Ferrari shirt: a bomb, the English immediately say, which already the mere suggestion had warmed minds for the sensational move of the seven-time world champion to the Maranello Team. Hamilton’s hiring is on everyone’s lips, it has been around the world, and the closing of a flash negotiation, a month before the start of the new season, arrives in the evening after a day of chasing rumors and unofficial certainties. First, Mercedes announces that at the end of the 2024 season Lewis will no longer be driving the Silver Arrow, having enforced the termination clause contained in the renewal signed in the summer. Then Ferrari shouts to the world and its fans in a few lines: Hamilton will be part of the team from 2025, and with a multi-year contract. Before the short press releases, the Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, had privately confirmed the indiscretion to all the team’s employees, who were urgently summoned to the English factory in Brackley.
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“I’m excited about this new challenge”, Hamilton’s first words, without mentioning Ferrari in compliance with the politically correct communication, “I spent 11 wonderful years with this team – the words of the Englishman, who will remain a Mercedes driver for the entire next season – and I am so proud of what we have achieved together. The decision to leave was one of the hardest I have ever had to make.” Wolff greeted Hamilton with fair play, implicitly dispelling suspicions of an even more brutal breakup. “In terms of the team-driver pairing, our relationship with Lewis has become the most successful the sport has ever seen, and it is something we can look back on with pride; Lewis will always be an important part of Mercedes motorsport history – the his words -. However, we knew that our partnership would come to an end naturally sooner or later, and that day has come. We accept Lewis’ decision to seek a new challenge and our opportunities for the future are exciting to contemplate. But for now, we still have a season to go and we are focused on racing to offer a strong 2024. In short, Hamilton in Ferrari is a surprise move, an earthquake in the Circus, but also the crowned dream – albeit at the end of his career – for the most emblematic athlete in the world of single-seaters. And by the time he can drive his first Hamilton Red, born in 1985, he will be 40 years old: not a record in terms of longevity (Fernando Alonso is on the track and is still going at 42), but certainly to put it to the English, ‘the last dance’ for the first black driver in Formula 1.
The agreement between Ferrari and Hamilton, seven-time world champion (2008, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) makes reality a suggestion that over the years has seen the baronet’s name linked to Maranello several times. “It’s a dream to be able to drive Ferrari”, the Briton had also recently admitted, who will join Charles Leclerc, twelve years younger, fresh from a long renewal and invested with a mission that the Cavallino has been pursuing for a lifetime : the conquest of that world title that has been missing since 2007. In a year we will understand, with the results of 2024 in hand, what the value scales will be between two number ones: there are already those who predict sparks. Making room for Hamilton will be Sainz, whose contract expires at the end of the 2024 season and whose possible renewal was discussed in recent weeks. “I will give everything next season”, the bitter observation of the Spaniard, at this point in his last season in the Reds. Last August Hamilton had extended the relationship with Mercedes (which he has been driving since 2013) until the end of 2025: but the The agreement contained a clause that allowed him to leave Wolff’s team early. And the same friendship between the boss of the Mercedes wall and the champion from Stevenage could have paved the way for the premature farewell: but also the bond with Fred Vasseur, team principal of the new Ferrari course. “Yes, we talk to Lewis often” the Frenchman let out. Now the asymmetrical combination between the most unconventional driver of the Circus and the tradition of Maranello is complete. He will land in Ferrari, the fans rejoice: for them the seven titles on the board count more than Lewis’ civil battles.
Montezemolo: ‘With Hamilton and Leclerc it will be fun’
“An unexpected and highly effective blow, I hope it can be useful not only to the competitiveness of the team, but also represents a way to shine the spotlight on the team, which needed it.” This is how Luca Cordero di Montezemolo comments to ANSA on the Hamilton-Ferrari wedding. “Hamilton – adds the former Ferrari president – is a great champion, he will want to do everything to end his career by winning the world championship, Leclerc is looking for his first title, it will be fun…But with two number ones, having a winning car will be even more important, it is fundamental otherwise this choice would prove to be a great risk”
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2024-02-01 20:04:00
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