Lewis Hamilton: New Ferrari driver celebrates fortieth birthday forward of recent F1 journey in 2025

Lewis Hamilton celebrates his landmark fortieth birthday on Tuesday, seven days right into a yr that’s set to show one of the crucial important and interesting of his entire profession.

That is Lewis Hamilton the Ferrari driver now, in fact, with January 1 having formally marked the profession transition from Mercedes silver to Ferrari purple for Formulation 1’s most well-known and profitable driver.

Whether or not coincidentally or not, Hamilton has chosen to embark on a late new chapter in his already unparalleled profession on the level in life thought-about a time of reflection on what has gone already and anticipation of the challenges that lie forward.

And by becoming a member of the game’s largest staff with the goal of serving to them return to championship-winning glory, and taking himself to a record-breaking eighth world title, the problem forward is definitely clear proper at first of arguably F1’s most blockbuster match-up in historical past.

‘Reinvention is highly effective’ – the Hamilton-Ferrari journey lastly begins

Given the union of F1’s most profitable driver and most profitable staff was first revealed final February, anticipation ranges have had virtually a yr to construct – and the outcomes of which are definitely already displaying early on, mere days into 2025.

On New Yr’s Day, Ferrari marked the formal begin of the partnership with a brief textual content submit on X – “Perfect time for a follow @LewisHamilton” – which whereas little greater than a matter-of-fact assertion, gained enormous social media traction, with the submit being seen virtually 4 million instances on that platform alone.

Hamilton additionally started the yr by following Ferrari’s official social accounts, even reposting their official announcement of his 2025 arrival from 11 months in the past, whereas sharing an image of him karting as a teenager carrying a purple crash helmet and yellow overalls – the colors of his new staff now many years later.

However his first phrases as a Ferrari driver truly got here on LinkedIn, the place he up to date his new job to: F1 Driver – Ferrari.

“I could not be more excited for the year ahead,” wrote Hamilton forward of his nineteenth consecutive season on the grid.

“Moving to Scuderia Ferrari, there’s a lot to reflect on.

“To anybody contemplating their subsequent transfer in 2025: embrace the change. Whether or not you are switching industries, studying a brand new ability, and even simply taking up new challenges, do not forget that reinvention is highly effective.

“Your next opportunity is always within reach. Here’s to 2025 – a year of embracing new opportunities, staying hungry, and driving forward with purpose. Let’s make it one to remember. Andiamo #newjob.”

Since then, Hamilton has been spending time in his traditional winter retreat on the slopes – posting an image in a purple snow swimsuit, inevitably, in a continuation of the early 2025 theme – and it’s not till the second half of January that we predict to see him in precise Ferrari racing purple for the primary time when he heads to his new ‘workplace’ in Italy.

Hamilton to make Ferrari monitor bow in previous automobile

Ferrari are but to formally affirm Hamilton’s actual early actions at their Maranello base later this month, however staff boss Frederic Vasseur instructed the media simply earlier than Christmas that his debut on the monitor for them was set to be in one of many staff’s previous automobiles.

That is as a result of F1’s sporting rules enable for the Testing of Earlier Vehicles (TPC), underneath sure restrictions, with groups this yr in a position to run their automobiles from 2023, 2022 or 2021 outdoors of race weekends and official 2025 testing.

What we do know is that Hamilton’s bow will come on the Scuderia’s personal Fiorano take a look at monitor, which is adjoining to their manufacturing unit in northern Italy, with the precise date later in January to be decided nearer to the time by the climate forecast.

Vasseur has additionally floated the potential for the Briton driving in considered one of Pirelli’s 2026 growth tyre exams, the primary of which takes place in Magny-Cours on the finish of January.

Whereas no bespoke unveiling occasion for Hamilton’s signing is deliberate, the Briton might be introduced together with the remainder of the much-changed 2025 grid at F1’s large season launch occasion at London’s O2 on February 18.

Hamilton and new team-mate Charles Leclerc will then assist launch Ferrari’s new 2025 automobile again in Italy a day afterward February 19.

With pre-season testing in Bahrain starting on February 26, when he’ll share driving duties with Leclerc throughout three days with the brand new challenger, Hamilton could have little over a month to actually acclimatise to life and dealing practices at his new staff – however his new boss shouldn’t be involved.

“For sure, we know that we’ll have a lot of procedures to assimilate during these couple of days, but I think he’s experienced enough to do it,” mentioned Vasseur.

“We will have the advantage to have the simulator, so he’ll be able to do a race simulation, a qualifying simulation in the simulator and to be fully prepared with the steering wheel and all the particularities of the car.

“However, actually, I am not nervous about this, and it isn’t the largest problem.”

Hamilton at 40: Can he nonetheless get again to his finest after 2024 struggles?

Whereas developments in sports activities science imply that seeing top-level sportspeople persevering with to compete into their late 30s and early 40s has turn out to be extra commonplace in sports activities the place it definitely was not the case in previous eras, similar to soccer and tennis, age alone has by no means been a very dependable bellwether for figuring out when a driver ought to dangle up their helmet in F1.

Drivers usually depart the game as soon as they both lose the motivation to race on, or as soon as they’re seen by groups to now not be quick sufficient.

Nonetheless, Hamilton might be solely the fifth driver to date this century after Michael Schumacher, Pedro de la Rosa, Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso to race on past their fortieth birthday when he takes to the grid for the season-opener in Australia on March 16.

Certainly Alonso, who himself has simply began a brand new two-year Aston Martin contract and can flip 44 in July, has in recent times redefined what is taken into account attainable for a 40-something driver to realize on this sport.

However one factor even the evergreen Spaniard has but to do as a quadragenarian is declare one other race victory. Nigel Mansell stays the final driver to win a grand prix of their fifth decade, the Briton doing so aged 41 on the 1994 Australian GP.

Emulating that Mansell feat will definitely be considered one of Hamilton’s early targets in purple and that’s one thing which ought to be eminently achievable given the Scuderia completed 2024 strongly – successful three races and ending on all-but two podiums throughout the season’s closing 9 races, as they simply missed out to McLaren on a primary Constructors’ Championship title in 16 years.

As probably the most profitable driver of all time, Hamilton doesn’t precisely have something left to show to anybody in F1, but additionally it is true to say that his tough 2024 swansong season at Mercedes did lead some observers and followers to query whether or not he was nonetheless fairly nearly as good as he as soon as was in his title-winning pomp.

These questions largely took place due to the uncharacteristic and sustained qualifying struggles which noticed report 104-time polesitter Hamilton thrashed 5-19 within the Mercedes head-to-head by George Russell, 13 years his junior.

Talking on a current version of the Sky Sports activities F1 Podcast, Nico Rosberg – the one considered one of Hamilton’s F1 team-mates earlier than Russell to outqualify the Briton over the course of a season, in 2014 – recommended that whereas the seven-time champion nonetheless confirmed loads of proof that his race performances remained supreme final yr, his qualifying points can be enjoying on his thoughts heading to Ferrari.

Rosberg mentioned: “Regardless that he nonetheless appears to be at his very, absolute best in race tempo… while you qualify poorly on a regular basis virtually – and he says it himself, he is simply not fast sufficient in qualifying – then that is one thing that was weighing on his shoulders a lot through the finish of the yr.

“When you get beaten race in race out from your team-mate who’s younger and not a world champion… and in the case of Lewis, who’s statistically the GOAT, then that’s really tough.

“Now he has two years at Ferrari, and he’ll 100 per cent be very, very nervous [thinking] ‘what if this type of mine continues? Was it simply the automobile at Mercedes, or was it one thing else, and what if this type of mine continues at Ferrari?’

“If it does it will actually be fairly a painful journey I’d say as a result of that is not what Ferrari employed him for.

“Ferrari hired him to be on a level with Leclerc and fight for world championships.

“So I feel he might be very nervous about that and we will solely hope that he finds again to his good previous self with a reset at Ferrari and is as soon as once more the sensible driver we all know.”

If Hamilton’s stirring LinkedIn message for 2025 is anything to go by, then the seven-time champion, armed with new car and operating in a fresh, new environment, is certainly primed to come back firing on all cylinders once more as he targets what would be a crowning glory to his career with the storied Prancing Horse.

Watch all 24 race weekends from the 2025 Formula 1 season live on Sky Sports F1, starting with the Australian GP on March 14-16. Stream Sky Sports activities with NOW – No contract, cancel anytime