Hamilton to Ferrari: Why, how, and is it likely?

Even if you prefer to deal with cold, hard facts, a bit of gossip can be a lot of fun. In Formula 1, the right bit of gossip can catch like wildfire, which is what happened in the Abu Dhabi paddock ahead of the season finale, when 'Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari' speculation was reignited.

Driver market chat, especially that involving the names Hamilton and Ferrari, is about as evocative as F1 rumour gets. This particular scenario would have an immensely powerful impact on the F1 landscape: the world's best driver joining the world's best-known team, and leaving F1's best team to do it.

The picture almost paints itself. Hamilton, the seven-time world champion fresh from matching Michael Schumacher for titles, makes a blockbuster move to end his career in red. He's set on taking Schumacher's records in the team that made the German a legend, ending Ferrari's painful title drought in the process.

An entertaining prospect, no doubt. But is it one rooted in any kind of reality?

Why is this a talking point?

Hamilton is one of several top-line drivers out of contract after next season, along with Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas, existing Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull's Max Verstappen. The future of Charles Leclerc, Vettel's team-mate, is slightly less clear, as he joined Ferrari on a multi-season arrangement this year, but the explicit nature of the deal is unknown. He too could be available.

There is no rush to get things done, which means the matter will remain open for several months yet. Mercedes and Hamilton might not even define a schedule for when to kick talks off until after the season starts, or it might happen organically. But the alignment of the contracts of F1's biggest stars makes for a mouth-watering silly season, which is exactly what Hamilton-to-Ferrari feeds into.

These latest mutterings originated in Italy, where La Gazzetta dello Sport reported Hamilton had met twice this year with Ferrari president John Elkann. Then, when asked about Hamilton's impending availability and if Ferrari would be interested in signing him, team principal Mattia Binotto called the six-time world champion an "outstanding" driver and "knowing that he's available in 2021 can make us only happy".

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff did little to dampen the flames. Asked how he'd feel about Hamilton meeting Ferrari, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff replied: "I'm totally OK with that."

Wolff is a shrewd operator. He knows the value of a fun story in F1, he's been honest about discussing the appeal of Ferrari with Hamilton before, he respects his driver and he is pragmatic. So he's not about to bullshit his way around a topic as sensitive as Hamilton's future or take the risk of assuming Mercedes' biggest asset is under lock and key.

From Binotto's point of view, there's little to be lost by answering a question honestly in a press conference. Is Hamilton a good driver? Yes. Would Ferrari like to sign him if he was available? They'd be stupid not to.

There's also the added possibility that Binotto saw an opportunity to light a fire underneath his warring drivers. Vettel and Leclerc need to work better with each other next season after rising tensions and a stupid crash in Brazil. With one, or potentially both, in need of a new contract after 2020, dropping a hint that there's a megastar on the market and Binotto's interested might be a way to get them to shift their attitudes.

Hamilton is no fan of early contract talk. He calls it "very odd that you have to do it almost a year before it ends", and would prefer to just wrap it up at the last minute. He is also the most dismissive of the Ferrari link, although not in as rude a manner as that might make it sound.

"I think that's the first compliment I've had from Ferrari in these 13 years," he said in Abu Dhabi. "I honestly don't remember them ever mentioning me ever, so thank you, I'll take it.

"It doesn't really mean anything, it's all talk. It's taken all these years for him to recognise maybe, but I'm grateful."

How it could happen

The appeal of signing Hamilton from Mercedes is obvious for Ferrari. Vettel has been poor this season, by his own admission not driving as well as he should as a four-time world champion. Hamilton would represent an upgrade and hurt Ferrari's biggest rival at the same time, by stripping Mercedes of its star driver.

There are financial and sporting incentives from Hamilton's point of view. The appeal of being the man to potentially end Ferrari's title drought must be quite high for any driver. Ferrari has not won a world championship since 2008, when it clinched constructors' honours, while Kimi Raikkonen was its last world champion in '07. The person who ends that run will be a hero and etch their name in Maranello folklore.

That and the lure of Ferrari as a brand is a powerful incentive. Hamilton is known to admire Ferrari - who doesn't? - and goes as far as admitting it was not a waste of time for Ferrari to be positive about him, even if it's just good manners.

To join Ferrari, Hamilton would need to be willing to walk away from Mercedes' domination of the V6 turbo-hybrid F1 era and his own role in that

"It has been a long, long time and a team that I've always appreciated over the years," says Hamilton. "So to earn their respect from someone from there who's obviously very high up is obviously not a bad thing.

"I think they've got two great drivers as is. Who knows what the driver market's going to be doing over the next year."

One could easily point to Ferrari's inability to sustain a season-long title challenge in recent years as evidence that Hamilton would be mad to go there. However, there is a major set of rule changes coming in 2021, which Ferrari must consider its best chance of upsetting Mercedes' game. And Ferrari is, arguably, already a much more competitive proposition than Mercedes was back in 2012 when Hamilton opted to leave long-time backer McLaren.

"I still think a driver of that level will always know that he can make an impact in a team," said Wolff. "What I'm considering is when he left McLaren for Mercedes [for the 2013 season], it was said that it wasn't the right move. And it proved to be right.

"I don't want to make the mistake of underestimating Ferrari's potential. I don't see a sense of entitlement for us to win the seventh or eighth title."

A driver of Hamilton's ilk, backed up by the profile he has built off-track too, wields huge financial power. Unless it's insane, he could probably name his price and have any big player meet it.

Given F1 teams will soon have a budget cap to adhere to and driver salaries will be exempt from the cap, there will also be money going spare. If the competitive order condenses anything like as much as F1 hopes, then the best driver of his generation will be worth his weight in gold...

"I think for a driver the priority will always be to be in the quickest possible car and in a team where he can achieve his objectives," says Wolff. "There will be components such as financial incentives that will play a role, and all that at the end becomes a total package that the driver will evaluate."

Ferrari's best chance of prying Hamilton from Mercedes might be to maximise its offer, but there is always the slim chance of push factors at the Mercedes end, too. While there are no signs of Hamilton falling out with his current employer, he has made a point of noting that Wolff's future is linked to his own. Wolff has reportedly been eyed up as a potential candidate to help run F1, having steered Mercedes since 2013.

But Wolff thinks Hamilton will be more "interested to know whether the team stays together overall". It would probably need an exodus, rather than one single departure, to sway Hamilton's thinking.

Is it likely?

Wolff was asked exactly this question. "I would rate it personally - and I'm leaning myself out of the window here - at 75%," he says. "But equally, there is a 25% chance that we are not in control of. So we'll see how the next months pan out."

A 25% chance of Hamilton heading for the exit door is low, but a basic understanding of numbers shows that 25% is bigger than zero. So there's something in it.

One of the most underrated aspects of Wolff's time at Mercedes has been to give Hamilton the freedom to pursue his personal endeavours

However, to join Ferrari, or do anything different, Hamilton would need to be willing to walk away from Mercedes' domination of the V6 turbo-hybrid F1 era and his own role in that. Earning five of the last six drivers' titles and building an unstoppable winning machine has not been the work of a moment and Hamilton often talks in glowing terms about what that means to him.

He said in the United States, before wrapping up his sixth title: "I don't particularly see myself going anywhere else. I love being at Mercedes. I love being part of the brand and the history. The idea of staying with Mercedes - I've been with them since I was 13 years old - even beyond Formula 1, probably heavily involved within Daimler and beyond, is quite attractive."

It is easy to see why. Even if you discount the sentimental value of Mercedes' role in the formative years of his career as a karter and junior single-seaters, and then his six-year spell with McLaren.

Hamilton joined Mercedes in 2013, one year before F1's new engine formula was introduced, and the partnership has matched Ferrari/Schumacher's tally of five drivers' titles, while Mercedes has broken Ferrari's record of five double championships by winning six drivers' and constructors' crowns on the spin. Schumacher won 72 races with Ferrari and scored 58 poles, while Hamilton has 63 wins and 62 poles with Mercedes.

Another factor to consider is that for all the appeal of Ferrari as a brand, tradition and prestige come with certain restraints. There would have to be a question mark over whether Hamilton could be the same person off-track with Ferrari that he can be with Mercedes.

One of the most underrated aspects of Wolff's time at Mercedes has been to give Hamilton the freedom to pursue his personal endeavours. Wolff and Mercedes provide Hamilton with enough flexibility to explore different ventures and throw himself into a hectic non-F1 lifestyle and, in return, they get the maximum commitment from Hamilton at the track.

Would Ferrari, which feels much more fundamentally conservative, have the same confidence to do so? Would Hamilton want to risk becoming more constrained?

"I feel that if you look at it from a rational standpoint, everything speaks for the fact of us continuing the journey together," says Wolff. "But then there might be other factors, a new challenge, an exciting deal, that you need to always factor in. I give this a 25% chance."

Thus we return to where we started, with the most likely outcome being the retention of the status quo. Mercedes does not want to lose Hamilton, and the feeling seems mutual.

In that sense, though Wolff's "25%" estimate of a shock switch is enticing, in reality, it feels quite generous. Even though it might be fun to pretend otherwise.