British F1 driver Lewis Hamilton indicators autographs throughout the Ferrari Drivers’ presentation occasion in Piazza Castello in Milan, Italy, on March 6, 2025. For the primary time in a dozen years, Hamilton has a brand new staff as he goals to return his F1 profitable methods.
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Piero Cruciatti/AFP through Getty Photographs
The Piazza Castello sometimes hosts a smattering of vacationers within the low season as winter defrosts into spring. Earlier this month, the historic coronary heart of Milan regarded a little bit completely different as crimson lined the streets operating by town middle in northern Italy.
The group wasn’t a papal viewers or political protest, however quite an inauguration of kinds for a brand new nationwide icon.
Lewis Hamilton, the British race automotive driver, had landed in Italy clad in a Ferrari-red racing go well with.
“I believe we’ve got every part we have to battle for the world championship and I additionally consider that you simply followers might be our further gear,” Hamilton addressed the plenty. “I hope we could have quite a lot of enjoyable collectively.”
The seven-time System 1 world champion has damaged almost each document within the globe-trotting motor sport in his 18-year profession — from crossing the end line first on 105 events and smashing lap instances to changing into the primary (and, thus far, solely) Black driver in System 1.
Hamilton achieved most of those minimal brake moments whereas driving for Mercedes for 12 seasons, aside from one out-of-reach trophy: turning seven championship titles into the legendary record-setting eight.
Race winner Lewis Hamilton of Nice Britain and Mercedes GP celebrates profitable a seventh F1 World Drivers Championship on the rostrum throughout the Grand Prix of Turkey on November 15, 2020 in Istanbul.
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The 40-year-old race automotive driver, properly previous the game’s typical retirement age, is assured he can clinch an eighth System 1 World Drivers’ Championship with the oldest outfit within the sport: Ferrari. Hamilton joined probably the most profitable staff in System 1 historical past in January and he’ll make his race debut alongside Charles Leclerc on Sunday in Melbourne because the 2025 System 1 season commences on the Australian Grand Prix.
The $100 million Ferrari-Hamilton deal is just not solely each events’ reply to quenching a championship thirst — Ferrari hasn’t received one in almost 20 years — but in addition the game’s resolution for continued relevance.
The European racing competitors has captured the eye of People over the previous six years thanks largely to Netflix’s “Drive to Survive,” a soapy docuseries detailing the on and off-track lives of System 1’s 20 drivers. After the sequence launched in 2019, race viewership leaped from 490 million throughout the 2018 season to 1.9 billion a 12 months later. System 1 grew to become the preferred international yearly sporting sequence in 2024 with 750 million followers, in keeping with Nielsen Sports activities. (Extra proof of the curiosity: the U.S. went from having only one Grand Prix in 2018 to now internet hosting three races once more this season).
Carlos Sainz of Spain driving (55) the Ferrari follows Lando Norris of Nice Britain within the McLaren throughout the Dash forward of the F1 Grand Prix of United States at Circuit of The Americas on October 19, 2024 in Austin, Texas.
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Hamilton was properly forward of System 1’s American conquest: sitting in Trend Week entrance rows alongside Kardashians, gracing American journal covers and strolling film premiere crimson carpets lengthy earlier than the game first unfurled its personal on the 2025 season launch occasion in February.
He’ll produce “F1,” a movie starring Brad Pitt, host the Met Gala and be the face of Lululemon in 2025. On monitor, he’ll try to hitch the title battle for the primary time since 2021.
“That is probably the most optimistic feeling I’ve had in a very long time,” Hamilton stated in regards to the new automotive at pre-season testing in late February. “I’ve at all times imagined what it will be like sitting within the cockpit surrounded by crimson,” he added earlier that month.
Hamilton is just not the primary driver to aim to satisfy a childhood dream by ending his racing profession in typical midlife disaster model — in his 40s with a model new Ferrari and a second household. However none have achieved an eighth title in Rosso Corsa crimson, the staff’s signature shade someplace between Strawberry Fanta and firetruck.
Championship contenders Max Verstappen of Netherlands and Purple Bull Racing and Lewis Hamilton of Nice Britain and Mercedes GP stand in entrance of the F1 World Drivers Championship Trophy on the grid earlier than the F1 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi on December 12, 2021 in United Arab Emirates.
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Regardless of Hamilton changing into probably the most embellished driver underneath Mercedes, he was within the midst of the longest win drought in his profession when he introduced the transfer throughout the pitlane a 12 months in the past. After profitable seven consecutive championships, six with Mercedes, he was set to say a never-been-done-before eighth in 2021. Then a 24-year-old Dutch driver sped forward in a contested, last-minute rule change on the waning laps of the ultimate race of the season. Max Verstappen’s Purple Bull crossed the end line first and hasn’t ceased rushing 30 seconds forward of the sector for the previous three years.
Verstappen’s continued dominance, profitable 19 of twenty-two races in 2023, and securing his fourth consecutive world championship final season, resulted in a success to the game’s reputation. Headlines claimed that the foul-mouthed prodigy was “killing” the game and that American audiences had been tuning the high-octane sport out as viewership dipped. When Hamilton introduced a once-in-a-generation staff swap paired with Verstappen’s loosening grip on unprecedented efficiency in 2024, the timing sheet appeared to tighten. Hamilton proved he was nonetheless a winner final season – claiming his residence race, the British Grand Prix.
The union of two establishments bigger than the game itself — The Billion Greenback Man and The Prancing Horse — set off a sequence of driver trades. With solely 20 seats, one shift can have ripple results. When the largest identify within the sport jumps groups, a tsunami hits.
The transfer carved out an empty house at Mercedes within the form of 18-year-old Italian wunderkind Kimi Antonelli and left Spanish driver Carlos Sainz, one of many sport’s present nice drivers, with no future at Ferrari. Six rookie drivers will compete within the sport this 12 months, because of Hamilton’s transfer.
The result’s what insiders and followers alike are calling the closest System 1 season in current historical past.
It is nonetheless an odd sight — seeing Lewis Hamilton in Ferrari crimson after so a few years of Mercedes black. As Hamilton begins the 2025 System 1 season with Ferrari on the Australian Grand Prix, his followers hope he can return to greatness.
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Clive Rose/Getty Photographs
The reality of that assertion can be put to the check when Hamilton strains up his new Ferrari in entrance of the 5 crimson lights on Sunday on the Australian Grand Prix. The group, bordering the road monitor, will dwarf Milan and don extra than simply the colour crimson.
Nonetheless, because the lights exit and engines flip over, a crimson carbon fiber machine will demand consideration.
