Fred Vasseur Sends Warning To Ferrari Amid Excitement Of Lewis Hamilton's Arrival

Saajan Jogia | Jan 1, 2025

Fred Vasseur / Ferrari Press Image

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has acknowledged the "excitement" of Lewis Hamilton's arrival at the team, as he officially became a Ferrari driver on January 1, 2025. However, Vasseur asked his staff to remain focused on the job from day two to prepare for the season that lies ahead to secure a better position on the grid than it finished in the previous year.

Ferrari secured second place in the Constructors' Championship last year, falling just 14 points short of the title-winning McLaren. With Hamilton joining the team and Ferrari continuing to improve its performance in the complex ground effect era, it is expected to be one of the favorites in the season's opening races.

Speaking on the entry of the seven-time world champion, Vasseur told Sky Sports F1, as quoted by PlanetF1:

“Everybody all over the world is excited and for sure, the mechanics are also excited, but because it’s always exciting to have someone who is a seven-times World Champion into the car.

“But I think after the day one, we’ll have to turn this page and to be focused on the job.”

Coming from Mercedes, Hamilton will find the "emotion around the team" to be a lot different but, Vasseur thinks it is something he can deal with. He added:

“You know that every single team is different for sure, but we are all chasing the same goal with the same approach.

“What is a bit different is the passion or the emotion around the team, but I think Lewis is well prepared to manage this.

“I think it’s much easier to arrive somewhere when the passion is at the top than the opposite. I’m not worried at all.”

Vasseur recognized that while the time for Hamilton to adjust to a new car is limited, his vast F1 experience makes the transition to Ferrari easier. The Briton will begin with a session in an older F1 car for Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) towards the end of this month, followed by a Pirelli tire test before stepping into the 2025 title contender during pre-season testing in Bahrain. He said:

“It’s not because it’s Lewis that we have to do differently, he will come with his own experience, with his own background, but we don’t have to change the approach.

“I’m sure that Lewis understands this perfectly, and we’ll have the first test days with TPC 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.”