Lewis Hamilton’s next testing schedule has been finalized by Ferrari as they continue to get ready for their first Formula 1 season together. The Briton will have his next run next week in Barcelona, Spain, after a brief acclimatization run at Ferrari’s Fiorano test track in Italy on Wednesday.
Ferrari has confirmed that it has reserved the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for a private test for Hamilton and teammate Charles Leclerc on January 28–30. The test will take place in an old car. Since the Testing of Previous Car (TPC) rules permit the squad to select any of its recent competitors, they have not disclosed which vehicle will be run through.
Although Hamilton drove the SF-23 at Fiorano, the team was also free to use the F1-75, its 2022 vehicle, if it so desired. Mercedes also demonstrated recently that teams are not opposed to returning to their 2020 vehicles, which are officially designated as historic, if they wish to get more mileage, with a Kimi Antonelli test at Jerez.
While such a car is not useful for understanding current performance characteristics, testing in one of them can still offer value in terms of simulating working with engineers as well as processes.
Hamilton and Ferrari will return to Barcelona on February 4/5 for a Pirelli tire test to assess the 2026 tires following the test later this month. In a mule car, which is a modified version of Ferrari’s 2024 challenger that mimics the downforce and performance levels of the new regulations for the following year, both drivers are anticipated to be on hard tires.
Following a day marred by fog and rain, Hamilton finished 30 laps of Fiorano on Wednesday, totaling approximately 89 kilometers (55 miles). The team will probably want Hamilton to put in more performance mileage than he did at Fiorano because that will help him better understand the car’s characteristics. The weather forecast for Barcelona next week looks clear but chilly.
Race drivers are permitted to run in TPC cars for a maximum of 1000 kilometers annually under the current testing regulations. Ferrari will launch its 2025 vehicle on February 19 and begin preseason testing in Bahrain on February 26.
Gary Anderson advice to Hamilton: The habits of seasoned drivers that Hamilton needs to stay away from at Ferrari
Neither the team nor the driver will have known exactly what to anticipate from one another when Lewis Hamilton arrived at Maranello this week to begin work ahead of his first Formula 1 season for Ferrari. Ferrari has a long history of successful drivers who eventually win it.
A few examples are Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso, and Michael Schumacher, all of whom won numerous world championships before arriving. Hamilton is the latest on that list.
All of these drivers arrived with extensive knowledge of how other successful teams function and an understanding of how the vehicle allowed them to succeed.
During his tenure at Mercedes, Lewis gained a great deal of experience in winning and how the company operated, but the past three years have not been good for his performance.
However, he truly struggled with consistency, which is even worse than the actual results. The Mercedes was excellent when it was in good condition, but when it was in bad condition, it was awful, and he struggled to handle that.
Hamilton will have a long list of things he would like to see in the car’s behavior that haven’t happened at Mercedes in the last three years. He is all too familiar with the shortcomings of those vehicles, and he will undoubtedly have noticed many changes in Ferrari’s 2023 machinery during his initial runs.
Even though he will be receptive to fresh perspectives and alternative methods, drivers with as much experience in Formula One as he does will actually be trying to replicate something they have already experienced. In my experience, this was definitely the case most of the time.
Working with younger drivers has always been fun for me because they are more eager to learn and adjust to the vehicle and your methods. Big names expect the team to be built around them because they have earned their position and influence.
Hamilton is trying to go into Ferrari open-minded, but simply because of his age and experience he cannot be as fresh in approach as a young driver would be.
The most well-known instance from my career occurred in 1998 when Damon Hill came to Jordan. In 1996, he had won the world championship for Williams, but in 1997, he had a rough year with Arrows.
Williams had a lot to prove when he came to us because, for some inexplicable reason, he chose not to extend his contract, which is essentially a dismissal. He therefore brought his own background, experience, and expectations to the table, which was difficult for a team like ours that was still going through growth pains.
In the beginning, he frequently made comparisons between our car and the way the Williams felt. That’s all well and good, and occasionally that information can be helpful, but the driver’s responsibility is to maximize the vehicle they own, and occasionally an experienced driver is too rigid and fails to adjust as they ought to.
When Damon got there, this was a major issue because the regulations had changed to allow narrow-track vehicles and tires with grooves. Due to these significant rule changes, this feedback became even less pertinent.
At the time, Damon’s teammate Ralf Schumacher served as my primary performance metric. Since he was only in his second season with us, he was familiar with our procedures and we knew what he was looking for in a car. Our team took some time to optimize the design requirements in order to maximize the benefits of these regulatory changes.
Additionally, we must keep in mind that Mercedes hasn’t produced a vehicle as good as its 2014–2021 models in a long time. Lewis might be better off moving on from the past and focusing on the present, especially considering what has transpired in the three years since these ground effect rules were implemented.
That might serve as more of a reset for Hamilton than if he had gone directly from winning championships at Mercedes to Ferrari, preventing him from searching for something that doesn’t exist.
Ferrari is a well-known top front-running team, which is how my career with teams differs from the scenario Hamilton is entering. The staff will all be hoping that he’s the last piece in the puzzle that will finally change their championship aspirations, as Ferrari hasn’t won a world championship since 2008, despite the fact that it has won races consistently during that time.
Sometimes his experience will be helpful, but if he’s hoping to get these cars to do the same thing he had with Mercedes back in the good old days, he’s probably going to be let down.