Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has explained that the team will not replace its technique to adapt to the arrival of Lewis Hamilton in 2025, despite his enormous good fortune in the sport.
Vasseur previously worked with Hamilton on his way through the junior ranks, with Hamilton now set to reunite with his former ART Grand Prix boss as a seven-time World Champion at Ferrari in 2025.
Vasseur claimed Hamilton’s joy and good fortune will bring his own way to leading his Formula 1 career, but with a tight turn ahead of the Australian Grand Prix in March, the team principal said there wouldn’t be much time to the excitement while standing. up. accelerate in Ferrari.
Hamilton’s contract begins in the new year and he looks set to take in testing as a Ferrari driver before the 10-car season launch in London in February, which will be followed a day after by Ferrari’s own official car launch, with pre-season testing in Bahrain coming a week later.
Although there is still plenty of time on paper before the start of next season, the team principal added that it will take the seven-time world champion around a month to get used to his new surroundings.
“It’s not because it’s Lewis that we have to do it differently, he will come with his own experience, with his own background, yet we will have to not replace our approach,” Vasseur explained to Sky F1.
“I’m sure that Lewis understands this perfectly, and we’ll have the first test days with TPC [testing of previous cars, ed.] and Pirelli and then the launch of the car, the launch of the championship, and then we’ll go directly to Bahrain, and it will be a tough sequence until Melbourne.
“But it’s true that it’s a short preparation, and because [of] that, we have something like four weeks at the factory before the first event. But it is like it is.”
? Opinion: Lewis Hamilton’s arrival means it’s time to sink or swim for Charles Leclerc
? Revealed: The remarkable 36-hour timeline of Lewis Hamilton’s move to Ferrari
Explaining to the team principal that it would be an emotional moment for the seven-time world champion to drive a Ferrari for the first time in Formula 1, Vasseur joked that it would allow him to get emotional for a short period before getting down to business. . to check it to be quick.
“Yes, it’s true that it’s emotional, because I think he’s had this moment in his brain for probably 20 years,” he said.
“It means that it will be emotional, but it has to be emotional for one lap!” He added with a laugh and clapping one hand to the other: “And then, to be focussed.
“You know each and every team is different, but we all pursue the same purpose with the same focus.
“What’s a bit different is the fans or the excitement around the team, but I think Lewis is well prepared to take care of that. I think it’s a lot less difficult to get somewhere when the fans are at their peak than the other way around. “. I’m not worried at all.
Ferrari has long been Italy’s “national team” as well as Formula 1’s oldest and most prominent manufacturer, bringing in exclusive strains from around the world.
Asked if that would play a role next season, Vasseur raised the question again, explaining that Hamilton’s experience of battling at the front of the box for so long will eventually help the Scuderia in its war to regain a top name from Maranello from the 2008 constructors’ crown.
“We are in the situation that we are fighting for details that average on the grid, the car in front of us is three hundredths of a second faster,” he explained.
“At the end [of 2024], you are fighting for 14 points in the championship. Is it an abandonment of the season, a strategic decision or whatever? That means that each and every detail will make a difference.
“And Lewis is coming with a huge experience, a huge experience of championships, of the background from Mercedes, or, let’s say, certitude on himself, and this will help the team to continue to grow up and to improve step by step.”
Read next: Yuki Tsunoda’s snobbery theory emerges with two transparent reasons from Red Bull