When will Lewis Hamilton make Ferrari debut in F1 2025? Testing, race schedule, contract size and extra

Components 1’s biggest-ever driver transfer has occurred forward of the brand new 2025 season with seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton gearing up for his first yr at Ferrari.

Maintain in control with the most recent key dates and occasions right here throughout pre-season because the early phases of one of many sport’s most anticipated link-ups performs out…

When will Hamilton drive a Ferrari for the primary time?

Ferrari are but to formally verify Hamilton’s precise early actions at their Maranello base when he arrives for the primary time later in January, however crew boss Frederic Vasseur advised the media simply earlier than Christmas that their star signing’s debut on the monitor for them was set to be in one of many crew’s previous vehicles.

That is as a result of F1’s sporting laws enable for the Testing of Earlier Automobiles (TPC), beneath sure restrictions, with groups this yr capable of run their vehicles from 2023, 2022 or 2021 outdoors of race weekends and official 2025 testing.

Given pre-season testing for the brand new 2025 challengers doesn’t happen till late February in Bahrain, a run in an older automobile earlier than then will enable Hamilton a primary probability to get used to among the distinctive traits of one of many Scuderia’s vehicles, programs and dealing practices on the monitor.

What we do know to this point is that Hamilton’s bow will come on the Scuderia’s personal Fiorano take a look at monitor, which is adjoining to their manufacturing facility in Maranello, with the precise date within the second half of January to be decided nearer to the time by the climate forecast.

When will Hamilton first seem publicly as a Ferrari driver?

Vasseur confirmed that no bespoke ‘unveiling’ occasion can be held forward of the season to mark the seven-time world champion’s arrival on the Scuderia, however Hamilton positively will be part of new team-mate Charles Leclerc and the remainder of the much-changed 2025 F1 grid on the sport’s particular season launch occasion at London’s O2 on February 18.

Hamilton will then participate in his first Ferrari automobile launch a day later in Maranello on February 19.

When will Hamilton drive Ferrari’s 2025 automobile for the primary time?

Whereas Hamilton and Leclerc will doubtless drive their new 2025 automobile at Fiorano in a shakedown beneath one of many crew’s permitted ‘filming days’ after its launch on February 19, the pair’s full debuts within the crew’s newest challenger will come at Bahrain Testing from February 26-28.

Hamilton and Leclerc will share driving duties throughout the three days within the Center East, that means they are going to be on monitor for a day and a half every.

When and the place will he make his Ferrari race debut?

Melbourne’s Albert Park would be the venue for Hamilton’s first race weekend as a Ferrari driver on March 14-16 because the Australian Grand Prix reverts to internet hosting the season-opener for 2025.

All 24 race weekends within the new season are dwell on Sky Sports activities F1.

How lengthy is his Ferrari contract?

Ferrari introduced that they’d signed Hamilton to a “multi-year” contract when the transfer was introduced final February. Whereas not specifying publicly the precise size of the time period, multi-year would definitely cowl each the 2025 and 2026 seasons and will even comprise choices for the Briton to proceed past that.

Hamilton, who turned 40 on January 7, mentioned in April 2024 that “I’m going to be racing well into my 40s” having beforehand performed down the possibilities of persevering with his profession for therefore lengthy.

The 2025 marketing campaign marks Hamilton’s nineteenth consecutive season on the F1 grid.

Why has Hamilton chosen to affix Ferrari?

It was a shock of actually seismic proportions when it emerged on February 1, 2024 that Hamilton can be leaving Mercedes on the finish of that yr to affix rivals Ferrari.

Activating a break clause in what had beforehand been regarded as a set two-year Mercedes deal, which had been agreed simply 5 months earlier, Hamilton mentioned that though it had been the “hardest decision I think I’ve ever had to make” in opting to go away he had concluded that “ultimately I’m writing my story and I felt like it was time to start a new chapter”.

How did Hamilton fare within the 2024 season?

In what was at all times going to be an uncommon 2024 season for Hamilton and Mercedes given his end-of-year exit had been introduced earlier than the marketing campaign had even began, the Briton completed outdoors the highest six within the Drivers’ Championship (seventh) for the primary time in his profession and was outperformed by team-mate George Russell.

Struggling to marry his fashion with Mercedes’ 2024 automobile, which suited some tracks and situations however floundered in others, Hamilton’s troubles largely manifested themselves in qualifying the place the document 104-time polesitter was trounced within the head-to-head by Russell and suffered some shock early exits, leaving him additional down the grid and sometimes compromising his weekends.

Nonetheless, although, there have been some notable highs – notably on race days – none larger than a superb win in changeable situations at his dwelling British GP, a record-breaking ninth win at a single Grand Prix and record-extending 104th general to finish a career-worst run of 56 races and not using a victory.

He inherited a a hundred and fifth when team-mate Russell was disqualified on the Belgian GP, whereas the closing weeks of his Mercedes profession lurched between unusually dismal showings – together with spinning out early in Austin and ending twelfth in a mistake-laden race in Qatar – and stirring comeback drives from poor qualifying shows in Las Vegas and, on his Mercedes farewell, in Abu Dhabi.

Who has changed Hamilton at Mercedes?

Entering into the footwear of the most-successful F1 driver of all time is without doubt one of the sport’s youngest ever debutants, 18-year-old Italian Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

A Mercedes protege who the crew have had on their books since 2019, Antonelli received two races in his sole yr of F2 in 2024 and has been fast-tracked by means of the motorsport ladder to one of many grid’s highest-profile seats in a transparent present of religion in his potential from crew boss Toto Wolff.

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