What Hamilton must learn fastest at Ferrari ahead of F1 2025

When Lewis Hamilton rolls down the Fiorano pitlane later this month, he’ll be experiencing a new Formula 1 sensation.

Ferrari is still yet to decide whether he’ll be driving a 2022 F1-75 or its successor, the SF-23, as he kicks off an extensive pre-season Testing of Previous cars programme at its home track and then later in Barcelona. But, whichever of the two cars the Scuderia is allowed to pick within the rules – one that may risk reigniting Hamilton’s worst memories of porpoising and the other than chewed its tyres around a flawed aerodynamic concept base – it will nevertheless be powered by the new factor Hamilton will be encountering for the first time.

Ferrari engine grunt. The first time – around shorter demonstration runs, such as driving McLaren’s Honda-powered MP4-4 at Silverstone back when he still drove for the team that brought him through or again in another example of that legendary car at Interlagos last year – he’ll be sampling contemporary F1 machinery in competition preparation that didn’t start life in Stuttgart.

But learning the intricacies of the delivery from what rival F1 teams call class-leading power output from the earlier Tipo 066 varieties and their Shell fuel is just the first of many key tasks ahead of Hamilton. This is as he gets up to speed with only his third new F1 team ahead of his 19th campaign in the championship.

There are other essential elements to understand, such as memorising the layout and switch settings functions on Ferrari’s steering wheels – something Hamilton claims to have changed substantially when joining Mercedes back in 2013. But there remain other perhaps less well defined but equally important processes for him to nail too.

You can bet that the banks surrounding Fiorano that late-January day will be packed with Tifosi eager for a glimpse of their new hero. Even at the 2024 Italian Grand Prix, sources in the event organisation were suggesting they were already seeing record demand for tickets for the following year, when Hamilton will make his first Monza appearance in red.

The enthusiastic reception that greeted Hamilton at Monza this year will surely pale by comparison with what he encounters in Ferrari red

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

F1’s first stop in Italy in 2025 – May’s Imola round – will surely see similar scenes from the home contingent. But Monza already holds a special place in Hamilton’s heart.

Not only from his record equalling Italian GP victories for McLaren and Mercedes, but also from clinching the 2006 GP2 title at the Temple of Speed – a result that helped secure his F1 promotion with McLaren the following season and alleviated pressure that had been building on his young shoulders as his dream move edged closer to becoming reality.

Indeed, how those two Monza F1 wins have made the Tifosi love Hamilton’s new team-mate, Charles Leclerc – declaring him ‘il Predestinato’ after his 2019 triumph on its hallowed ground. Although perhaps Leclerc’s valiant lost first win in Bahrain that year laid much of the groundwork.

Hamilton is already getting to work integrating himself at Ferrari – learning basic Italian and key phrases

For Hamilton, however, Ferrari fans can already look back and rewatch the successes and efforts of many lifetimes for mere F1 mortals. But to replicate his team-mate’s home success – and also engage in the bigger, overwhelming, challenge of the year in competing for the 2025 world title – those smaller key details will be pivotal.

Hamilton is already getting to work integrating himself at Ferrari – learning basic Italian and key phrases ahead of his move from what will remain his main home in Monaco. The impression he makes on his new team in these early weeks may well be crucial in creating the in-step Prancing Horse partnership the Scuderia wants its new star to create with Leclerc.

That’s at least initially. If Ferrari’s new car is a world title contender, both will be eying their chances. If this then descends into the kind of open animosity Hamilton and Nico Rosberg deployed at Mercedes a decade ago or translates into 2024 McLaren-style awkwardness between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri remains to be seen.

Leclerc already possesses a key edge. Those 126 F1 races in scarlet, combined with his work as a team junior driver – his simulator work in 2017 earning written personal praise from then Ferrari star Sebastian Vettel – means the squad knows him very well. He also has the knowledge that team boss Fred Vasseur and Ferrari overall picked him as its long-term future and not now former team-mate Carlos Sainz, despite the Spaniard running Leclerc very close in their four seasons together. 

How Hamilton compares with Leclerc will be among the most fascinating elements of the year

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Ranged against this is how Leclerc – even coming off the best season yet of his F1 career – is still yet to challenge for a title over a full season. Hamilton can look back on 12 campaigns where he contested the ultimate prize.

Taking the intra-Ferrari scrap further into isolation, their respective qualifying results will form a key part of the battle, which is another element Hamilton urgently needs to be working on this off-season.

Leclerc’s qualifying speed is readily apparent – his reputation as F1’s best qualifier forged in so many quarters for a reason and those early-career-defining crashes at the limit disappearing from display (his wet China SQ3 shunt where he bent his steering discounted as that was an out-lap misjudgement) last term.

Hamilton, meanwhile, arrives at Ferrari after what can only go down as an awful final year in qualifying terms for Mercedes. He went from 2022’s 12-8 qualifying head-to-head against Russell (all sessions) to a 5-19 defeat last year and while the average gap between them was just a small 0.148s, the defeats clearly still stung, as did how promising practice form so often disappeared from underneath Hamilton in 2024.

The inconsistent braking of this generation of cars is clearly something with which Hamilton struggles. His best career results in qualifying were built on having supreme braking confidence.

Using additional throttle to aid subsequent corner rotation – something Hamilton discussed backfiring also back in China last year – creates an additional problem for him with the current generation of sensitive Pirelli tyres, at least according to Mercedes insiders.

These things won’t change in this current period of rules stability, which is a problem for Hamilton. So too is how missing the 2024 season-closing Pirelli tyre test means he lacks what could be key early knowledge on the changes to the compounds for 2025 that are aimed at reducing overheating, plus the introduction of the new C6 softest tyre.

Bringing the Ferrari drivers back into what is expected to be F1’s first season-long multi-team scrap for title glory since 2021 (but really, 2012 with more than two squads involved) and any qualifying weakness could well be very costly even around Hamilton’s enduring in-race tyre management mastery. Incidentally, there’s data that shows Russell just shaded him on this factor too in 2024.

Hamilton was not released by Mercedes for the Abu Dhabi tyre test, so will have catching up to do when testing begins in Bahrain

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

But there’s a lesson from Hamilton’s success-soaked past that might yet prove very helpful. This was how in 2020 he’d reflected on how his previous high-profile qualifying performance dip had made clinching his sixth title harder than it might’ve been the year before.

He set out to improve via dedicated winter workshops with his now former right-hand-man Peter Bonnington and other Mercedes engineers. This paid off handsomely, as Hamilton turned his 2019 pole count of five into 10 (double that of closest challenger Valtteri Bottas) in '20, which remains his most recent championship success.

That was a year of all-encompassing dominance that few expect to be repeated in 2025. But it shows how these off-season efforts can reward a driver well. These are multiplied for Hamilton as he joins F1’s most storied squad and magnified by the weight of expectation this move has created.

Soon we’ll see just how they pay off.

Can Hamilton's winter efforts reap a similar reward to 2020?

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images