Lewis Hamilton has been warned that he will need to adjust to the way Ferrari does things when he makes his move from Brackley to Maranello at the end of the current season.
Hamilton made the announcement that he was to leave Mercedes just before the current season. But F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali – a former Ferrari team principal – has warned the seven-time world champion that it will mean quite a change.
While Hamilton has been able to substantially shape Mercedes around his own talents and preferences, that won’t be the case at Ferrari were he will be partnered with Charles Leclerc.
“Lewis needs to understand the mentality of Maranello and Italy and I’m sure that he’s totally curious to understand that,” Domenicali said. “It’s a new opportunity, a new chapter of Lewis’ career, a new chapter also for Ferrari.
“For us at Formula 1 it’s incredible news,” he told Sky Sports F1 last week. “These ingredients have taken us already into 2025, even if we are just at the beginning of the chapter of 2024. I think it will be an incredible story.”
“On the other hand, when there is such an incredible personality coming into the team and in Ferrari, there will be a lot of focus on him,” he continued.
“Charles will take that as a new fire for him to push him to be even stronger so I think all the things are positive for the team,” he added.
There have been suggestions that top F1 designer Adrian Newey is also attracted to the idea of working for F1’s most iconic team, following reports that he’s told Red Bull he wants to leave them.
Last year, Newey admitted that it had been a matter of lasting “emotional regret” that he’d turned down several approaches from the Italian marque during his long career in F1.
He also said that he wished he’d had the opportunity to work with Hamilton. And for his part, when asked last month about Newey mirroring his move to Ferrari, Hamilton replied that “My move has shown that anything’s possible possible.
“I’m competing against him [Newey] this year at the moment, so I can’t really talk about next year so far just yet,” he said. “It’s going to be a really interesting next six months or so.
“I know obviously Adrian gets all the praise for everybody’s work,” Hamilton continued. “He’s a huge part of it, but I know there’s so many engineers in the background that are a huge part of developing the team and the car. It’s not down to one person.”
As to whether there is any chance of Ferrari adding Newey to their technical team line-up, Hamilton admitted that it was a matter above even his elevated pay grade. “It’s not my decision!”
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Hamilton warned about life at Maranello amid Newey talk F1i.com.
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