In 2017, Lewis Hamilton joked about joining Ferrari, a light-hearted comment that foreshadowed his actual move to the team in 2025.
Lewis Hamilton apparently joked with Ferrari’s vice-president in 2017 about a potential move to the Scuderia, seven years before he actually signed for the Reds.
Hamilton will swap his Mercedes seat for a Ferrari one in 2025 after activating an exit clause in his current contract to sign a multi-year deal with the Italian team.
It’s no secret that Hamilton has always been an admirer of Ferrari’s road cars, and a visit to make a personal purchase led to an intriguing conversation with a key figure of the brand, Vice President Piero Ferrari.
“Not everyone may know that Lewis has always been drawn to the allure of the prancing horse. He’s one of our clients. He’s visited the factory on several occasions.”
But not the F1 team itself.
“No, no,” Piero Ferrari explained. “He came as a buyer of our cars. He’s not just a speed ace. He has a real love for supercars. In his garage, our cars could not be missing. One in particular… the model called LaFerrari.”
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“Hamilton came to Maranello in 2017 to give instructions on how to tune his car. It was on this occasion that we cordially greeted each other. And he told me something that struck me…”
“We had Sebastian Vettel on the team and were satisfied with Seb. We had just renewed the contract with him, everything was going well. Lewis made a joke: ‘If you had waited twelve months, I would have come in 2019…”
Vettel indeed renewed his contract with Ferrari in August 2017, in the middle of what turned out to be an unsuccessful partnership. Hamilton then extended his own contract with Mercedes in July 2018 for the 2019 and 2020 seasons.
But did Hamilton really dream of driving a Ferrari in F1 six or seven years ago?
“I don’t think so,” Piero Ferrari admitted.
“He has lived and is still living a fantastic story with Mercedes. But certainly, as I said, he was never indifferent to our story.”
“He is also very attached to the legend of motorsport, having Ayrton Senna as a childhood idol, and at Mercedes in 2013 he took over Michael Schumacher’s place.”
“Well, personally, I’m very happy. A character like Lewis fits perfectly with the Ferrari legend.”
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