Why the early parallels of Hamilton's Ferrari arrival are already more Schumacher than Vettel or Alonso

"Grand Prix racing has, in recent times, come under fire from many quarters for its lack of overtaking, predictable results and characterless circuits. But is it really so bad? And just what can be done to improve the spectacle?"

The words of Autosport magazine, 24 August 1995 – in case you were wondering. Because, time and again, the cycles of history repeat. For Formula 1 then, give or take the unexpectedly good 2024 season and the hopes for an even better campaign this year, many feel the same about the current era.

And this one is now getting another age-old motorsport story: a veteran champion seeking a potentially final stab at F1 glory with that most storied of squads, Ferrari.

As you’ll know extremely well given the excitement levels surrounding his second F1 career move, now it’s Lewis Hamilton’s turn. He’s learning the exact tread of that illustrious path into Ferrari’s famous Maranello factory right now.

Three other F1 legends have been in the same position in the last 20 years: Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel.

All three share similar elements of their Ferrari dreams with Hamilton’s current reality.

Although, in Schumacher’s case, he was the only one who didn’t claim to grow up dreaming of one day becoming a Ferrari driver.

Despite all his success as a Ferrari driver, Schumacher conceded it was never his dream to race for the Scuderia

Photo by: Lorenzo Bellanca / Motorsport Images

“It has not always been my dream to be a Ferrari driver, because I never even dreamed of being an F1 driver," he said in the aftermath of doing his 1995 deal to swap Benetton for the Scuderia in 1996.

The period that preceded Schumacher’s arrival as a double world champion at Ferrari contained plenty of difference to Hamilton’s present situation, too.

For the German, staying with Benetton for 1996 would’ve been the better short-term bet – with the team taking the constructors’ crown along with his second drivers’ title in the final year of their famous partnership.

“It has not always been my dream to be a Ferrari driver, because I never even dreamed of being an F1 driver" Michael Schumacher

For Hamilton, heading to the team that nearly won the 2024 constructors’ is an upgrade on the fluctuating form of his former team, Mercedes, last year.

Schumacher was also surprisingly open about two elements of his Ferrari move, about which Hamilton has said very little: salary and the contractual expectations of Ferrari’s other driver.

Schumacher admitted in 1995 that in regards to his then $16m salary, he’d “had discussions with Williams, but Frank (then still an eponymous team principal) prefers to spend his money on the technical side rather than the driver and the difference was too big (between his offer and what Schumacher wanted)".

And Schumacher outright confirmed “you can be sure that it is” the situation that his Ferrari contract stipulated he would be number one driver, when lining up alongside Eddie Irvine for the first of their four seasons as team-mates.

Hamilton faces parallels to Schumacher's switch to Ferrari, even though he may not be as forthcoming with some information

Photo by: Ferrari

For Hamilton, although figures that would take him back above Max Verstappen’s position from 2024 as F1’s best-paid driver at somewhere between £40m-£60m have been suggested, he won’t ever discuss such matters in the open.

All too familiar is the criticism about living in Monaco, which just isn’t sent towards his F1 compatriots George Russell, Lando Norris and now Oliver Bearman.

Hamilton is also going into his new Ferrari challenge with Charles Leclerc not only contractually unshackled, but with the Monegasque very much out to measure his championship calibre against statistically F1’s greatest-ever driver.

The current Hamilton-Ferrari alliance is also significantly different to those that began with such similar hopes for Alonso and Vettel.

The former arrived at Ferrari in 2010, when, despite his two fallow years back at Renault when things had imploded so spectacularly at McLaren in 2007, was very much in the middle of his era heading the F1 pack overall.

Schumacher was in a similar position, and Vettel just about was, whereas Hamilton arrives for what many expect to his final seasons in the championship. Clearly, he is a few steps down from the ultimate performance peaks he scaled in 2018-2020.

So far this year, Hamilton hasn’t yet faced the outside F1 press corps, whereas in 2010 Alonso had by this stage already used Ferrari’s old ‘Wroom’ skiing promotional event to launch broadsides at his old squads.

Alonso had already faced the media by this time during his first year with Ferrari

Photo by: Sutton Images

Another difference is how Alonso was hired to replace an incumbent Ferrari star (and champion) – Kimi Raikkonen. Whereas now, for as close to Leclerc’s level Carlos Sainz had managed to be for the last four seasons, Hamilton comes in to elevate Ferrari’s line-up significantly.

Where the start of both the Alonso and Vettel Ferrari eras divert from this one, it comes down to where Ferrari sat in the competitive order for those respective red bows.

For Alonso, Ferrari was at the start of its slide from being a long-established title-challenger position – although neither side knew it back then. For Vettel, who replaced Alonso in turn in 2015, that malaise had long taken hold.

For both Vettel and Hamilton, the narrative question of the early moments of their Ferrari stints centred on whether the big transfer can turn Ferrari back into a consistently winning force

Vettel arrived with Ferrari in full rebuilding phase – Maurizio Arrivabene coming in as team principal at the same time. His reign was to be short-lived too.

There are, however, some parallels of this current time for both 2010 and 2015.

In the latter, Vettel was arriving on the back of a comparatively poor F1 season – after clinching his four world titles with Red Bull largely at the expense of the Alonso-Ferrari alliance. 

In the former, Alonso also rocked up against a Ferrari-reared rival – in his case Felipe Massa.
Hamilton heads to join Leclerc after a bruising finale season with Mercedes – where he took so far his worst position in the F1 drivers’ standings (seventh) and finished behind his now former team-mate Russell.

Having failed to usurp Russell in their final year as team-mates, what can Hamilton do against Leclerc?

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

He was also adrift in terms of their qualifying head-to-head statistic and was slightly behind overall on average race pace, per Autosport’s calculations (see the February 2025 edition of our relaunched magazine).

For both Vettel and Hamilton, the narrative question of the early moments of their Ferrari stints centred on whether the big transfer can turn Ferrari back into a consistently winning force.

It was the same for Schumacher too – the Autosport edition cited above also containing the headline, "The Final Piece in Ferrari's puzzle?" in relation to the German’s own Maranello move.

But there was much more that ties the Ferrari starting narratives of both Schumacher and Hamilton together, compared to those of Alonso and Vettel.

For Benetton in 1995 and Mercedes now, the same question stands: can a previously top squad cope without its old long-term star? And the early suggestion is that Hamilton’s grasp of Italian will be along the lines of that with which Schumacher started out, compared to the already-fluent Alonso and fast learner, Vettel.

But the main thrust is again where the Ferrari squad stands overall in terms of its competitive place.

Ferrari's strong end to 2024 puts it in the mix for titles this term

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

As at this stage of pre-season, we must rely on how things finished last year – an even more useful fallback than for many years given the design rules are so stable for 2024-2025 – the Scuderia must be considered a very strong bet.

Not only is it on the up in a similar vein when comparing 1995 and 2024-2025, but it’s making solid progress with a highly-rated French manager. For Jean Todt in the early 1990s, read Fred Vasseur now.

That both bodes well and amps up the expectation for Hamilton’s longer-term start for life at Ferrari. But the words of yet another F1 legend who tried and failed to reach the promised land at the end of the Ferrari path are prescient.

“You have between three and six months to make the whole thing good and after that the opportunity is finished. The first six months is very important” Alain Prost

“It's like in politics when you change presidents,” Alain Prost – dumped by Ferrari in 1991 – said back in 2015 amid Vettel’s Ferrari foray.

“You have between three and six months to make the whole thing good and after that the opportunity is finished. The first six months is very important.”

And so, while Hamilton is on stronger footing for the initial read on his early times with F1’s most famous team, he must quickly establish firm success to avoid trial by the ferocious Italian media and passionate Tifosi if things end up going wrong this year.

He does, however, have the added protection of a big rules reset coming next year that will surely ultimately decide whether his Ferrari stint either takes a successful shape or indeed falls apart. Hamilton is not going to get just one season with the Scuderia.

But in any case, Schumacher, Alonso and Vettel all won races early on with Ferrari – winning after seven, one and two races in red respectively.

The latter two proved to be false dawns Hamilton just won’t want to repeat, as he chases the ultimate glory taken by Schumacher. Still, really, Ferrari’s last success story.

Will Hamilton surpass Schumacher's championship tally with Ferrari?

Photo by: James Moy