Hamilton photographed in London in February, with Aroma the stallion Credit score – Scandebergs for TIME
On Valentine’s Day, Lewis Hamilton enters a sprawling studio area in northwest London and intently stares on the magnificent creature standing off within the distance.
“Sh-t,” says Hamilton to nobody specifically. “I’m nervous.”
Quickly sufficient, nonetheless, the overcomes his anxiousness and is standing face-to-face with a shiny black stallion named Aroma. He pets his nostril, massages his neck, typically spreads his arms throughout Aroma’s thick coat. He’s doing his allergic reactions, the supply of his preliminary worry, no favors. However Hamilton, a literal knight, is enamored, peppering the horse grasp with questions. The place’s Aroma from? (Portugal.) Can he sleep mendacity down? (Sure.) How a lot does he weigh? (About 1,300 lb. Just a few hundred lower than Hamilton’s race automobile.)
He’s throwing well being warning to the wind with a purpose to commemorate his a lot ballyhooed transfer from Mercedes, the place he received six of his seven F1 driver titles, to the honored Scuderia Ferrari HP race staff: a photograph of himself positioned in entrance of an precise black horse standing on his hind legs, mimicking the Italian automaker’s well-known brand. Like Hamilton, Aroma—who’s retired however nonetheless does the occasional picture shoot—has a powerful resume, together with appearances in Robin Hood and Maleficent, advertisements for Hermès and Burberry, and a video; he’s joined by Theo, a stunt horse you would possibly acknowledge from Bridgerton, amongst different issues. “That is going to be such an iconic image,” says Hamilton whereas making an attempt on outfits for the shoot. “Tremendous timeless.”
That relies upon, after all, on what comes after. At 40, Hamilton is aiming to not solely win a document eighth F1 driver title—cementing his standing as the best F1 driver to ever dwell and ending the longest-ever championship drought for probably the most storied race staff on the planet—but additionally fulfill a lifelong dream. His transfer to Ferrari, introduced earlier than the 2024 season, was surprising worldwide front-page information: he had suited up for Mercedes for greater than a decade, helped construct a extra various workforce there, and hoped to sometime purchase an possession stake within the staff. It appeared he would experience into the sundown with the Silver Arrows.
Hamilton had different concepts. “You’ll be able to’t stand nonetheless for too lengthy,” Hamilton tells TIME, in his first in-depth interview about his determination to depart Mercedes for Ferrari. “I wanted to throw myself into one thing uncomfortable once more. Actually, I believed all my firsts had been completed. Your first automobile, your first crash, your first date, first day of college. The joy I obtained by the thought of, ‘That is my first time within the crimson go well with, the primary time within the Ferrari.’ Wow. Actually, I’ve by no means been so excited.”
Throughout the 2024 F1 season, Hamilton, out of respect for Mercedes—with whom he was nonetheless below contract and racing—didn’t discuss a lot concerning the change. The state of affairs was awkward and unprecedented. (Image suiting up for the Los Angeles Lakers realizing he’d be enjoying the next 12 months for a rival, just like the Boston Celtics. Precisely. It will by no means occur.) All sides seem to have dealt with it as professionally as doable: Hamilton ended a 945-day shedding streak by successful his hometown race, at Silverstone in Britain, in July earlier than successful once more in Belgium three weeks later. In the meantime Carlos Sainz, the Ferrari driver whom Hamilton is changing this 12 months, helped Scuderia end second within the constructor, or staff, standings, just some factors behind 2024 champion McLaren.
Hamilton’s highway to the title document received’t be simple. Some critics have questioned Ferrari’s technique of signing an growing older driver, whose finest days might very effectively be within the rearview. They’ve puzzled whether or not Ferrari’s extra all in favour of advertising than successful—Hamilton continues to be F1’s hottest driver, by a mile, in addition to an internationally recognized cultural determine with a hand in trend, movie, and enterprise. (He’s co-chairing the Met Gala in Might alongside , Pharrell Williams, A$AP Rocky, and Anna Wintour; LeBron James is honorary chair.) Plus, a slew of youthful drivers like reigning four-time champion Crimson Bull’s , 27; McLaren’s Lando Norris, 25; and Hamilton’s new Ferrari teammate, Charles LeClerc, 27, might maintain him off the highest of the rostrum.
“The previous man is a way of thinking,” says Hamilton. “After all your physique ages. However I’m by no means going to be an previous man.”
The 2025 F1 marketing campaign, which kicks off in Australia on March 16, comes laced with intrigue. Hamilton sits on the epicenter. Ferrari is faith in Italy; when the staff wins an F1 race, the bells of the Church of St. Blaise in Maranello, the small metropolis close to Bologna that homes Ferrari headquarters, ring in celebration. So Hamilton’s quest to finish Ferrari’s agony, whereas breaking the person title document set by —who received 5 straight titles with Ferrari from 2000 to 2004—might be appointment theater. In the meantime, Hamilton is co-producing, together with Jerry Bruckheimer and others, an F1 film, aptly known as F1, that’s nearly actually a Brad Pitt car. The movie, which comes out in June, plus a aggressive race for the championship, might ship a jolt to the game’s recognition, particularly within the U.S., the place however flattened out a bit, given Verstappen’s predictable dominance.
A Hamilton championship in crimson, within the twilight of his racing life, could be nothing lower than one of many biggest mic-drop moments in sports activities historical past. “I don’t know if I can discover an adjective to explain that,” says American racing legend Mario Andretti, the 1978 F1 champion who raced for Ferrari within the early ’70s. “Nothing is lacking in his profession. However oh man, how higher are you able to describe your profession after that? Oh my God, he’d be the king of all kings.”
Two weeks earlier than the stallion picture shoot, Hamilton is placing golf balls right into a simulator at an indoor membership on the banks of the Thames. (He has a pronounced slice.) He doesn’t golf a lot today, however Hamilton being Hamilton—a person who has taken full benefit of this sport’s jet-setting methods to change into one of many world’s most outstanding collectors of influential individuals—he final performed a spherical with actor Tom Holland, a.okay.a. Spider-Man. His different golf companions have included Samuel L. Jackson and Kelly Slater, the browsing GOAT. He was as soon as speculated to play with one other GOAT, Michael Jordan, however when Hamilton obtained to the course, he says, Jordan “didn’t find yourself being there.”
As we’re taking swings, I ask Hamilton if he’s checked out TGL, the indoor golf competitors based by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy that simply launched its first season within the U.S. He hasn’t. I clarify a number of the particulars—it’s a staff league, ESPN is exhibiting it on weeknights—earlier than it sounds acquainted. However Hamilton is concerned with so many tasks—films, artwork, trend strains, the Denver Broncos, a pet-food firm, a plant-based burger chain with Leonardo DiCaprio—that he can’t fairly keep in mind whether or not he poured some cash into this new outfit. “I might need,” he says, with fun. (He did.)
Hamilton takes a break from golf, reclines on a sofa, and orders a latte earlier than sharing the story of how he arrived at this second. It started a very long time in the past, when he was a child rising up in public housing north of London. His first Ferrari reminiscences have caught with him. He would drive Schumacher’s automobile in racing video video games. The Ferrari reproduction featured in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off—the 1961 250 GT California Spyder—continues to be, to today, Hamilton’s favourite. “That’s the final word retirement automobile,” he says. “I can simply see myself with Roscoe, him with a shawl and goggles within the seat subsequent to me, driving down the PCH.” (Roscoe, Hamilton’s pet bulldog—who, like his proprietor, is vegan—has an Instagram account with 1.1 million followers.)
McLaren signed Hamilton to a driver’s deal in 1998, when he was 13. In 2006, Hamilton received the championship in what’s now referred to as Formulation Two. “I did have the little bit of crimson on my helmet,” he says. Throughout that F2 season, and the one prior in F3, Hamilton raced for staff principal Frédéric Vasseur, whose administration model and talent to recruit prime engineering expertise to his lower-level operation impressed the younger driver. Hamilton figured Vasseur could be a F1 chief sooner or later.
Hamilton received his first F1 championship in 2008, his second season with McLaren. He competed there for 4 extra seasons earlier than leaping, in 2013, to Mercedes, a middling staff that Hamilton lifted to championship heights. Via all of it, Hamilton maintained cordial relations with Ferrari management. He’d stroll previous the Ferrari storage at races, say “ciao” to the mechanics, and listen to them say “vieni Ferrari” (come to Ferrari). Round 2018, Hamilton met with Ferrari chairman John Elkann. Either side expressed a want to see Hamilton in crimson. However by the tip of the 2020 season, Hamilton had 4 straight championships with Mercedes. He had no motive to leap ship. “If I’m actually trustworthy, I had accepted the truth that I’m most likely not going to drive for Ferrari,” says Hamilton. “I used to be OK with that.”
After the 2021 season, Hamilton almost walked away from racing. He—and tens of millions of his followers—felt his document eighth driver title was stolen from him, when throughout the last race of the 12 months, in Abu Dhabi, an official’s controversial determination allowed Verstappen to overhaul Hamilton within the final lap and clinch his first title. Hamilton in the end refused to give up with no battle, however he didn’t win a single race as Verstappen cruised to a different pair of championships. Hamilton signed a two-year extension with Mercedes in the summertime of 2023, however the deal allowed him an possibility to depart after one 12 months.
In the meantime, true to Hamilton’s prediction, his de facto coach within the minors, Vasseur, took over an F1 staff in 2016. Earlier than the 2023 season, he was employed for a brand new team-principal gig—at Ferrari. Vasseur obtained wind of the loophole in Hamilton’s new deal—“He instructed me at one stage,” says Vasseur. “Excellent news”—and aimed to signal an settlement with Hamilton earlier than the 2024 season. He wished his drivers below contract final 12 months, LeClerc and Sainz, to be freed from whispers relating to their standing. So whereas Hamilton was at his dwelling in Colorado in December 2023, he obtained a name from Vasseur asking him to hitch Ferrari beginning in 2025. “I keep in mind getting off the telephone and, like, nearly shaking,” says Hamilton, who’s now nearly shaking whereas recalling the second. “I used to be like, Oh God!”
He instructed a good friend who was with him concerning the name; they each sat in silence on a rest room flooring in shock. “I used to be like, Holy sh-t,” says Hamilton. “I actually simply signed with Mercedes.” Breaking apart with a staff that felt like household was removed from a no brainer. And he didn’t have a lot time to resolve. “It was loads to absorb, and my feelings had been actually excessive,” says Hamilton. “So I truthfully needed to go for a stroll.” He left the home for an hour to decompress.
Hamilton then spent a number of days meditating. He was leaning towards Ferrari. “My eyes felt actually calm and current,” he says. “That is the suitable factor for me.” When he’d switched from McLaren to Mercedes all these years in the past, he solicited an excessive amount of recommendation. Right here, he confided in just some relations and trusted mates. “One can not low cost the Ferrari affect on the game, particularly via the eyes of a kid,” says Mellody Hobson, co-CEO of Ariel Investments and the previous chair of the Starbucks board, who’s very near Hamilton. Throughout negotiations, after each telephone name with Ferrari, he’d bounce round like somewhat child.
“We’re in a time of reimagining the long run, reimagining what actually dreaming is about,” says Hamilton. “I’m going to Ferrari, man, and that’s the largest dream.”
Not everyone seems to be so thrilled. The day after he knowledgeable Mercedes staff principal Toto Wolff of his determination was Hamilton’s annual paintball outing along with his race-team mechanics. When he arrived, he was too nervous to get out of his automobile. “These are guys I’ve been with so a few years,” says Hamilton. He ultimately stood on prime of a desk to handle his determination. His squad appeared understanding and supportive. However they let him have it in paintball. “They lit me up, arduous,” says Hamilton. “It was so painful.” At one level, he was hiding behind a barrel capturing on the different staff when he was struck from behind. A member of his personal squadron had nailed him. “Freaking man,” says Hamilton.
They laughed about it afterward and managed to get via the season. “There isn’t any unhealthy blood,” says Hamilton. “Completely not. We received so many championships.” (Mercedes declined to remark for this story.) Andrea Kimi Antonelli, an 18-year-old from Bologna, will take Hamilton’s place within the Mercedes lineup. “They’ve all of the components to win world championships, and they’ll win extra world championships,” says Hamilton of Mercedes. “I’ve little question.”
In a ebook revealed in November—Inside Mercedes F1: Life within the Quick Lane—Wolff says Hamilton’s transfer “helps us as a result of it avoids the second the place we have to inform the game’s most iconic driver that we wish to cease … We’re in a sport the place cognitive sharpness is extraordinarily necessary, and I consider everybody has a shelf life.” The feedback triggered a stir, and Wolff clarified that Hamilton continues to be “very sharp.”
Hamilton insists Wolff’s comment doesn’t trouble him. He factors to athletes like and who’ve achieved success into their 40s. “Don’t ever examine me to anyone else,” says Hamilton. “I’m the primary and solely Black driver that’s ever been on this sport. I’m constructed totally different. I’ve been via loads. I’ve had my very own journey. You’ll be able to’t examine me to a different 40-year-old, previous or current, Formulation One driver in historical past. As a result of they’re nothing like me. I’m hungry, pushed, don’t have a spouse and children. I’m centered on one factor, and that’s successful. That’s my No. 1 precedence.”
He additionally dismisses criticism from the broader racing group. Former F1 staff proprietor Eddie Jordan stated in a December podcast that it was “completely suicidal” for Ferrari to drop Sainz from its roster, given the sturdy working relationship between him and LeClerc. (Sainz will now race for Williams.) “I’ve at all times welcomed the negativity,” says Hamilton. “I by no means, ever reply to any of the older, in the end, white males who’ve commented on my profession and what they suppose I ought to be doing. The way you present up, the way you current your self, the way you carry out slowly dispels that.”
Others, together with former Ferrari driver Jacky Ickx, have urged that Ferrari has signed Hamilton primarily for his business worth. “I believe it’s actually unfair to Lewis, a number of the feedback saying, ‘It is a advertising operation,’” says Elkann, the Ferrari chairman. “Fact stated, Lewis doesn’t want that. Ferrari doesn’t want that. What we have to do is win championships and do nice issues on the monitor. If that occurs, what we will do outdoors of the monitor, in some methods, takes care of itself. There’s limitless potentialities.”
The strain, inner and exterior, Hamilton faces is immense. No F1 staff owns extra constructor titles than Ferrari, however they final received in 2008. Ferrari additionally owns the driving force document, with 15, however the final Ferrari driver to win a person crown was Kimi Raikkonen, in 2007. Ferrari followers are so passionate that they go by their very own title, the tifosi. On the Ferrari museum, not removed from the staff’s 9.3 million-sq.-ft. campus in Maranello, Italy, pilgrims usually begin crying, or suggest marriage, within the Corridor of Victories, which showcases the staff’s championship automobiles and greater than 100 trophies.
One night time in early February, on the Ristorante Montana, which shows a trove of Ferrari memorabilia in its eating room, Andrea Puttini, a vendor of constructing supplies from Naples, is outdoors having fun with a smoke. “In Italy, we are saying it’s not necessary in the event you converse unhealthy or converse good about one thing,” says Puttini. “The significance is that you’re speaking about this. And Hamilton, only for being right here, he lets us discuss all around the world about Ferrari.”
Hamilton linked with as a lot of his new co-workers as doable throughout his first go to to Maranello in January, shaking arms till his arm was pulsating. “The quantity of ciaos and grazies and piaceres I used to be saying, aye aye aye,” he says. After his first check run, he went out to greet the supporters lining a bridge that overlooks Ferrari’s non-public racetrack. A number of weeks later, a fan decked out in a crimson Ferrari shirt and cowboy hat minimize down a tree to permit the tifosi a greater take a look at a Hamilton follow.
Hamilton first noticed himself in a Ferrari go well with whereas in, of all locations, the john; he was washing his arms and regarded up into the mirror. “I’m in crimson, I’m like, Whoa!” he says. He paused for a second to absorb the reflection. He appreciated what he noticed. “The go well with regarded so good on me,” says Hamilton, laughing. “I’m like, Rattling.” When seated in a Ferrari race automobile for the primary time, he closed his eyes when the engine began and smiled. “The vibrations are totally different,” he says. He allow them to course via his physique. “You simply marvel how that feels,” Hamilton says. Now he is aware of. “It’s a very, actually particular second.”
Nonetheless, Hamilton is effectively conscious that Italian sports activities followers haven’t at all times been so welcoming of Black athletes like himself. He competed in karting races there in his youthful days, beginning at round 12, and skilled racist abuse, simply as he had in England. He prefers not to enter particulars. “I don’t wish to dwell,” he says. However he’s heard the racist chants directed at Black soccer gamers specifically. “I’m not going to lie, it undoubtedly crossed my thoughts once I was interested by my determination,” he says. “Like in so many issues, it’s usually such a small group of people who set that pattern for a lot of. I don’t suppose that it’s going to be an issue.”
Ferrari’s variety—or lack thereof—was Hamilton’s extra urgent concern. Within the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 homicide, as a part of the worldwide sports activities protest motion in opposition to racial injustice, Hamilton began the Hamilton Fee to supply suggestions for extra Black illustration in U.Ok. motorsports. Mercedes launched its personal variety initiative within the months that adopted and started hiring personnel from underrepresented teams, together with Black engineers. “I did suppose, Oh my God, I’ve lastly obtained a extra various working setting that we’ve constructed over time,” says Hamilton. “And now I’m going again to the start of my time with Mercedes, the place it wasn’t various.”
Together with each different F1 staff, Ferrari signed a Variety and Inclusion constitution in November. Whereas the brand new Trump Administration has made a degree of attacking variety—the President has signed a sequence of government orders concentrating on applications—Hamilton, for one, stays locked in. “I’m not going to alter what he does, or the federal government does. All I can do is attempt to make it possible for in my area, in my setting, I’m making an attempt to raise individuals,” he says. “There’s going to be forces alongside the way in which that don’t need that, for no matter motive I can’t fathom. That doesn’t cease me. It’s a battle that we’ll simply maintain preventing.” Hamilton is assured that Ferrari is dedicated to inclusion.
Vasseur, Hamilton’s new boss, agrees that it’s necessary, although as he fiddles with a binder clip in an workplace at Ferrari headquarters, the place commerce secrets and techniques are so carefully guarded guests should place stickers over their mobile-phone cameras (crimson ones, after all), he means that it might not be his prime aim. “It’s not politically right, however first is efficiency,” he says. “I’m eager to enter the path of variety and so forth. We’re doing our greatest effort. We try to push on this path, however I wish to construct up the most effective staff.”
I present Vasseur, who hails from France, a photograph I discovered on-line: it’s him and Hamilton some 20 years in the past, celebrating a win. He exhibits me some pictures on his personal telephone, of his youngsters, who are actually grown, with Hamilton. He’s having fun with the stroll down reminiscence lane. However, he says, “We are able to’t be sentimental.”
Switching groups is tough for any driver. The steering wheel, the cockpit, the terminology, they’re all totally different. “I’m actually studying a very new ebook,” says Hamilton. F1 rules enable restricted follow time within the new automobile. He’s made strides in his Italian, due to classes, however he’s under no circumstances fluent. It took Hamilton greater than 4 months to win a race in his first season with Mercedes. What offers Vasseur confidence that Hamilton will speed up that studying curve?
“I might reply like a ebook and offer you one thing that you simply wish to write,” Vasseur replies. “However on the finish of the day, at this a part of the season, the sensation, the primary time, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, might be nothing in comparison with race one in Australia. You’ll neglect about all the pieces that occurred earlier than. It’s all about pure efficiency.”
Whereas Hamilton swears his devotion to Ferrari, his schedule has remained lots full. A Vogue Week and red-carpet common, he has his personal manufacturing firm, a Dior line, and different enterprises. He says he’s within the preliminary phases of growing scripts for a comedy—it doesn’t contain racing—and a movie pertaining to pets. (That’s all he’ll provide.) However the largest factor on the horizon, apart from after all the 24 Grand Prix races within the season, is the upcoming F1 film.
Tom Cruise had first linked Hamilton with director Joseph Kosinski as a result of Hamilton was all in favour of an performing function in . Kosinski was able to carry him on board, however Hamilton was nonetheless preventing for championships with Mercedes and couldn’t afford the time dedication. Cruise screened the film, which grossed $1.5 billion worldwide upon its 2022 launch, for Hamilton in London. “I used to be crying a bit inside,” Hamilton says. “Ah, that would have been me!”
So when Kosinski known as Hamilton about his F1 venture, Hamilton jumped on the likelihood to be a producer. Early within the course of, he took Pitt, who performs a veteran F1 driver within the movie, for a drive round a monitor close to Los Angeles. “He gave Brad the scare of a lifetime in a lap,” says Kosinski. “Brad was clawing on the home windows, begging to get out.” Hamilton was additionally a part of the casting course of and provided instructive suggestions. “The notes are so detailed,” says Bruckheimer. “‘If you’re going into that subsequent flip, you’ve got the automobile in second gear, it ought to be in third. I can hear it. I can hear the sound of it.’” He pushed for Hans Zimmer, composer of The Lion King, Gladiator, , and different hits, to attain it. His shut relationship with F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali, a former Ferrari staff principal, helped the filmmakers achieve entry to F1 tracks and races to shoot scenes. “He opened all these doorways for us into that world,” says Kosinski. “We might not have been ready to do that with out him.”
Hamilton is predicting box-office success. “It’s going to blow away something that’s ever been completed in Formulation One earlier than,” Hamilton says. The Netflix behind-the-scenes docuseries, , has been correctly credited for increasing F1’s recognition, particularly within the U.S. Hamilton believes this film will compel viewers from all totally different backgrounds to change into followers, and even pursue a profession in F1. “Netflix has been big,” he says. “That is going to be even larger, on extra of a worldwide scale.” Whereas F1 may not depend as art-house fare—“I don’t suppose we set out for it to be, like, an Oscar-winning film,” says Hamilton—he’s promising a memorable expertise. “The aim is to make individuals really feel good, to carry individuals in, to encourage individuals,” he says. “We wish you to depart the cinema and be like, ‘Wow, that was freaking depraved.’”
However even along with his inventive juices flowing, he’s as energized as ever to drive. In different phrases, in contrast to Aroma, whose presence doesn’t appear to have triggered Hamilton’s allergic reactions in any respect, he has no plans to decelerate. “What I can inform you is, retirement is nowhere on my radar,” says Hamilton. “I may very well be right here till I’m 50, who is aware of.”
Hamilton believes that he and LeClerc are the strongest staff pairing within the sport and that Verstappen is “completely” beatable. “I do know precisely the place the North Star is,” says Hamilton. “I do know the place I have to go. I understand how to get there. It’s far, and it’s going to be powerful to get there, however I do know I’ve obtained all of the components, all of the individuals, an incredible staff round me. So it’s how a lot you need it. And I can’t specific to you ways a lot I need it.”
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Set design by Thomas Chook; styled by Eric McNeal; grooming by Yuko Frederiksson and Angela Rivera; horse wrangling by Steve Dent Stunts; manufacturing by Rosco Manufacturing
