Why is the transfer of Lewis Hamilton to the Ferrari Formula 1 team

The biggest shocks

Formula 1 has seen a good amount of major changes in the team over the decades,Emerson Fittipaldi Leaving McLaren to start his own team, Ayrton Senna McLaren trade for Williams and Michael Schumacher Going from Benetton to Ferrari, but nothing like this. It could be said that this is the best sport pilot who joins the forces with his most successful team in an attempt to establish the driver championship record and end the drought of the title of a 17 -year -old builder.

You really need to resort to other sports to find a free agent firm that rival Hamilton’s change to Ferrari. Even there, it is difficult to find a real similar movement. Barry Bonds had not risen to greatness (and was not particularly loved) when he left Pittsburgh’s pirates to sign with the San Francisco giants before the 1993 season. Tom Brady He was already the best indisputable field marshal of all time when he said goodbye to the New England patriots and linked to the Bay Bucaneers tampa in 2020, but the history of the last franchise was anything but sterling. The closest movement is LeBron JamesThe decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers for the second time and sign with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2018, a transaction that gave the player his fourth ring and the franchise his 18th championship.

Why it was time for Hamilton to leave Mercedes

There are still some detractors out there, but for almost everyone else, Hamilton is the best F1 driver of all time. It can be tied with Michael Schumacher for the largest amount of driver championships to seven, but has all the other records that import, including victories (with 105), the positions of the Pole (104) and the podium (202), all of which were supported by Schumacher before him.

The title of an eighth driver would make Hamilton’s case even more impeccable. So why leave? Mercedes-AMG PetronasDid the team claim six of its championships (more than any other pilot has done with a single team) between 2013 and 2024? Because, since he lost the 2021 crown in the last round of the last race of the season, the team has struggled to build a car that can compete with Red Bull (or McLaren or Ferrari) per week. It seems that Hamilton has decided that he has a better opportunity to beat Verstappen if he is running in the characteristic Rosso Scuderia in Ferrari.

Why did Ferrari love Hamilton so much?

In the fall of 2023, shortly after accepting an extension with Mercedes, Hamilton revealed in an interview with El Periódico Holgado that Ferrari had approached him to join several times over the years, but “he never felt ready to move to Italy.”

It is easy to see why Ferrari was so stubborn in his search for Hamilton. In addition to everything quoted in the previous section, all except the first two years of the British driver’s career coincided with the drought of the longest title in Ferrari’s history. The team has won 16 builder championships, seven more than anyone (Williams and McLaren are the following with nine each), but none since 2008. What better way to end 16 years of misery than with the dominant driver of that time?

Will it work?

Because it is Hamilton, it comes from the worst three -year stretch of his career. Since the last disappointment of 2021, he has won only two races and ended on the podium only eight times. In the past, that would have been a bad tour for a single season for the pilot, much less the total combined of three. Your former Mercedes teammate, RussellIt was only marginally better during the same period, winning one more career, which suggests that the problem may not have been who was sitting in the driver’s seat.

Hamilton will not be alone, of course. Your teammate will be Ferrari veteran Leclerwho ended second in the driver’s classification in 2022 and the third last season. None of them are vision, or runner -up of 2024 Lando NorrisBut they could be the best combo of one and two in sport, especially if a change of stage and machinery shows stimulate for Hamilton.

Despite the tenth place on Sunday, there is still a reason for optimism. Ferrari New SF-25 career car It was one of the most competitive vehicles during preseason training at the end of February. Hamilton turned in the second fastest round of the three -day event (1: 29,379 minutes), with his Leclerc teammate less than a tenth of him behind him (1: 29,431).

Don’t forget Sainz

F1 teams only have two seats for drivers, so the Hamilton movement reached the expense of Carlos Sainz. The Spanish has been one of the best in sport in recent years, it was only the non -red bull pilot to win a race in 2023, sometimes even surpassing the former teammate Leclerc. It is not frequent that finishing fifth in the classification costs a driver his work, but it is not frequent that his team can replace him with the goat.

To make things worse, there was no natural landing place for Sainz. I would do it Take up to summer To find out where I would be running in 2025. The answer: Williams, a team that ended ninth last year. Because of this, the expectations for Sainz, despite all his clear talent, will not approach what they were when he was in Ferrari. However, don’t tell the driver. In Bahrain last month, William’s new star recorded the fastest return time of preseason tests. In second? The man who took his job, Hamilton.