Eighth title for Lewis Hamilton? Ferrari set clear target for F1 2025

Lewis Hamilton to challenge for record eighth title with Ferrari in F1 2025?

The British star stands as the most decorated driver in F1 history, having equalled Michael Schumacher’s long-standing record of seven World Championships in 2020 before becoming the first man to surpass 100 race wins and pole positions the following year.

Hamilton had been on course for a historic eighth title at the 2021 season finale in Abu Dhabi, before the FIA race director’s failure to implement the Safety Car rules correctly saw him lose out to Max Verstappen in highly controversial circumstances.

Red Bull driver Verstappen secured a fourth straight World Championship in F1 2024, becoming only the second man in F1 history after Sebastian Vettel to clinch his first four titles in successive years.

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Meanwhile, Hamilton has been restricted to just two wins over the last three seasons – suffering two consecutive winless campaigns in 2022/23 – with Mercedes struggling to adapt to the ground-effect regulations.

Hamilton, who celebrated his 40th birthday earlier this week, was heavily beaten by George Russell in qualifying last season, starting behind his team-mate at 19 of the 24 races in F1 2024.

It prompted Hamilton to admit at the penultimate race in Qatar that he is “not fast anymore.”

Ferrari enjoyed their most successful season in some time in F1 2024, with Charles Leclerc and Hamilton’s predecessor Carlos Sainz collecting a combined five wins.

However, the team fell 14 points short of McLaren in the fight for the Constructors’ Championship with Ferrari still without a title triumph of any kind since 2008, the year Hamilton secured his maiden crown.

With F1 2025 marking the final year of the current regulations, most teams are expected to produce an evolution of their 2024 cars for the new season as attention turns to the major rule changes for F1 2026.

But Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur recently revealed that the team’s 2025 car – codenamed Project 677 – will be “completely new” compared to last year’s SF-24 in a bold statement of intent.

And a report by the Italian edition of Motorsport.com has claimed that expectations are high at Maranello for F1 2025, with Mr Elkann demanding a further “improvement” in Ferrari’s results this year.

Hamilton is known to have a friendly relationship with Elkann, who is understood to have been a central figure in persuading the seven-time World Champion to leave Mercedes for Ferrari.

Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com at the 2023 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, less than two months before his move to Ferrari was announced, Hamilton revealed that he met Mr Elkann “years ago” at a Google event in Sicily with the pair remaining in touch ever since.

Elkann is not the only familiar face Hamilton will encounter at Ferrari, with Vasseur previously overseeing the driver’s title winning GP2 season as boss of the ART Grand Prix team in 2006.

Hamilton will also be reunited at Ferrari with chassis technical director Loic Serra and assistant team principal Jerome d’Ambrosio, the former Marussia and Lotus-Renault driver, both of whom joined from Mercedes last year.

Serra, who is leading the development of Project 677, is understood to have a particularly close relationship with Hamilton having worked alongside the British driver throughout his Mercedes career.

The Frenchman is also understood to have shared Hamilton’s doubts over the failed zero-pod car concept pursued by Mercedes across 2022/23.

Reports earlier this week claimed that Serra’s influence will be noticeable on Project 677, with his expertise in vehicle dynamics – including suspension components like torsion bars and shock absorbers – set to boost Ferrari’s qualifying performance in F1 2025.

Ferrari are said to be aiming to fully exploit the new-for-2025 Pirelli tyres, having been among the teams to have worked closest with the supplier on the development of this year’s rubber, which are expected to be less prone to overheating and capable of longer race stints than the 2024 tyres.

Project 677 is expected to see Ferrari return to a pullrod rear suspension layout for the first time since 2015, with a longer wheelbase and a shorter gearbox set to improve the car’s weight distribution in order to further enhance tyre management.

It is unusual for F1 teams to make such drastic changes to their car for the final year of a given rules cycle, with McLaren’s bold approach to the 2013 season famously backfiring.

Having claimed seven victories with Hamilton and Jenson Button in the former’s final season with the team in 2012, McLaren failed to score a podium the following season after a number of design changes over the winter.

McLaren proceeded to go nine years without a race victory before Daniel Ricciardo’s triumph at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, with the Woking-based outfit finally clinching their first Constructors’ title in 26 years in 2024.

Hamilton is to receive his first taste of Ferrari machinery in what is expected to be a two-day ‘wake-up’ test at Fiorano in the week commencing January 20.

Ferrari have traditionally held a private test at Fiorano in January in order to get team and drivers back up to speed ahead of official pre-season running, with Hamilton set to drive either the 2022 or 2023 car for his maiden outing.

Hamilton’s pre-season preparations will then move to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, the home of F1’s Spanish Grand Prix, where Ferrari are understood to have scheduled a two-day test for late January.

It means Hamilton will have driven 1,000 kilometres spread across four separate test days – the maximum allowed for full-time drivers under the revised TPC [Testing of Previous Car] rules for F1 2025 – before the official launch of Project 677 on February 19.

That will come 24 hours after Hamilton and Leclerc attend F1’s first-ever collective season-launch event in London, where Ferrari will showcase their new livery – carrying a deeper shade of red – for F1 2025.

Three days of pre-season testing will then be held in Bahrain on February 26-28 before the F1 2025 season commences with the Australian Grand Prix on March 16.