F1 News: Ferrari Chief Reveals Lewis Hamilton Obsession That Will Boost Ferrari

Saajan Jogia | 9 Hours Ago

Oct 19, 2024; Austin, Texas, USA; Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team driver Lewis Hamilton (44) of Team Great Britain smiles to the crowd during a fan forum before the Sprint Race in the 2024 Formula One US Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images / Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur revealed that Lewis Hamilton's "mindset to chase the last thousandth" of a second on every aspect of the F1 car could prove to be a huge asset for Ferrari after Hamilton's onboarding in 2025.

With the technical regulations of the current ground effect era having stabilized since its inception in 2022, and with the technical race getting more intense with each weekend, the team will now resort to squeezing every bit of performance from the car, which Vasseur believes is the seven-time world champion's strong point.

Vasseur joined forces with Nicolas Todt to establish ART Grand Prix, a team integral to Hamilton’s rise through junior single-seaters. Competing with the French squad, Hamilton displayed exceptional talent, securing championships in the 2005 F3 Euro Series and the 2006 GP2 Series, which later became Formula 2.

Vasseur's mindset aligns with Hamilton's mantra of diversity, as he believes it is important to have people from different backgrounds and cultures at Ferrari. He added that Hamilton will bring a wealth of F1 experience to the team that will make a huge difference to the performance. He said:

“I think it’s always important to have people coming from other teams with a different culture.

“It’s nothing to do against Italians or English or whatever.

“It’s just that we are in the business when the transfer of know-how is important and we are a bit isolated. 

“But it will be a good push for us to have… It’s already the case because we were recruited a little bit to some other team and I think it’s a good push because you see it a bit differently.

“I’m convinced that Lewis will come with his own experience with the background of 18 years in F1 or 17 with a couple of titles and so on.

“It will be a good push just to keep this mindset to try to do a bit better everywhere not to imagine that the performance is coming from the others into the team.

“It’s not that the performance is coming just from my hero or whatever. It’s coming from everybody and this is important.”

Vasseur highlighted his experience with Hamilton from 2006, revealing his pedantic nature that helps recover performance from several areas of the car. Such a mindset will be crucial for Ferrari in a period of intense competition, especially after it lost the Constructors' Championship to McLaren by 14 points this season. The Ferrari chief added:

“I perfectly remember Lewis in 2006 [in GP2] that he was already like this pushing on small details.

“At the end of the day if you have a look I think average the delta between McLaren and us perhaps in qualification is a couple of hundredths. 

“And we are really at this stage and it’s also with Red Bull and Mercedes that we are speaking about details coming from 100 topics of the car. 

“We really need to have this kind of mindset to chase the last thousandth on every single area; I think Lewis will be a good asset for this also.”