With the brand new season lower than a month away, has instructed that his transfer to Ferrari is “the problem that I actually wanted” and that “the primary objective is to win.”
The seven-time drivers’ world champion despatched shockwaves via the game final yr when it was introduced he could be realizing his dream of driving within the iconic crimson of the Italian workforce, after spending 12 years at Mercedes.
However even he admits that he’s been shocked by the influence his arrival has had on the Italian outfit.
“Once I was making the choice, I knew it might be massive. Did I do know simply how massive? ‘How lengthy is a chunk of string?’” he tells CNN smiling. “It’s been probably the most thrilling couple of months that I can bear in mind having.
“It’s been a giant, massive step and thrilling … On daily basis’s been one thing fully new and the problem that I’m having is one thing that I actually wanted. I do know I’m precisely the place I’m meant to be proper this second.”
Iconic arrival
Hamilton’s transfer to Ferrari was solely his second change between groups in his close to 20 years within the sport since his debut in 2007.
The arrival of one of many sport’s most iconic figures to Maranello despatched the world of System One and Ferrari’s fanbase right into a spin.
In his first official day on the workforce, the 40-year-old posed for a collection of photographs wearing a black go well with subsequent to a Ferrari F40 supercar with the enduring transformed farmhouse of the workforce’s founder, Enzo Ferrari, within the background.
The picture, which was taken in the identical sq. named after with whom he sits stage on seven championship titles, is now probably the most appreciated F1 Instagram put up of all-time.
“I knew precisely what go well with I needed it and the way it regarded, and I selected the F40 as a result of that’s only a dream, iconic automotive,” he explains.
“To be in entrance of that constructing, the historical past inside all of the drivers, you see them take that picture in entrance of it … I knew it might be a picture that may stand the take a look at of time.”
Managing expectations
The prospect of bringing one of the crucial profitable drivers the game has ever needed to companion with an iconic racing model has raised hopes of the 40-year-old securing what could be a record-breaking eighth drivers’ championship title.
Though his final championship title got here in 2020, he completed his Mercedes marketing campaign on a excessive with two race wins in 2024 after two seasons with out victory.
However the competitors in 2025 will stay as powerful as ever with seeking to proceed his domination with a fifth successive championship and McLaren’s Lando Norris a number one contender to dethrone the Dutchman.
So is Hamilton already permitting himself to dream of standing on the highest step of the rostrum within the crimson go well with of the Prancing Horse?
“Truthfully, I haven’t. I genuinely haven’t,” he says. “It’s a really, very steep studying curve, it’s a totally new tradition.
“The automotive is totally totally different, and it behaves otherwise to what I’ve skilled, the engine, the management programs, the terminology used for all of the set-up, so all the pieces is sort of a clean canvas and I’m attempting so as to add a few of my colours to the already nice mixture of colours that they’ve on this group.”
‘An influence that’s unmeasured’
Ferrari’s final driver’s title got here all the way in which again in 2007 with Kimi Raikkonen’s victory and the outfit is and not using a constructors’ championship since 2008.
Though Hamilton’s companion at Ferrari, Charles LeClerc, completed a distant third within the driver standings, Ferrari pushed McLaren all the way in which final season, ending an in depth second, simply 14 factors off the Woking-based workforce.
Hamilton, although, has already witnessed the important thing substances of delight and fervour that would assist finish the workforce’s title drought.
“I knew that there’s ardour inside the workforce, but it surely’s not ‘til you’re really within the workforce that you just see it,” he explains.
“I’ve seen and witnessed Ferrari drivers expertise it yr on yr on yr, however to really be within the crimson go well with now and be on the receiving finish of it’s, ‘Wow’ … I’ve by no means seen something prefer it.
“This workforce has a hardcore fan base that may rally behind them it doesn’t matter what at anyplace, at any time. It’s one thing fairly unbelievable to see. If you put you that collectively as a collective that’s an influence that’s unmeasured.”
‘Profitable is all I care about now’
And no person extra so than Hamilton is conscious of the facility of reaching an viewers inside and past the racing monitor.
Hamilton – the game’s first and solely Black world champion – has grown to develop into its conscience, standing up in opposition to injustice and calling for extra to be executed to deal with variety, illustration and inclusion in motorsport via his charity, Mission 44.
He has additionally unfold his wings into the sector of vogue, tradition and music.
And whereas these tasks will proceed in earnest, full focus is now on the monitor. He bought his first style of driving what he hopes might be a title difficult automotive, the SF-25 mannequin Ferrari, on the producer’s non-public racetrack in Italy this week.
Focus will then transfer to preseason testing which begins in Bahrain on February 26 with the opening race following quickly after in Melbourne on March 16.
“I’ve bought an amazing rapport with Fred (Vasseur, Staff Principal) and the workforce,” he says
“They perceive and embrace the truth that I’m totally different and I’ve these different pursuits, however they’re underneath no phantasm and neither am I that the primary focus and the primary objective is to win on this workforce, and that’s all I care about proper now.”
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