MARANELLO, Italy — Lewis Hamilton’s arrival will present “an enormous opportunity” for Ferrari next 12 months but signing the seven-time Formula One champion involved some uncomfortable phone calls, team principal Fred Vasseur said Tuesday.
Hamilton is joining Ferrari for next season after driving for Mercedes since 2013. He’ll team up with Charles Leclerc on the Italian team after Carlos Sainz Jr. leaves.
“It’s an enormous opportunity for the team, needless to say,” said Vasseur, who has known Hamilton since they worked together throughout the British driver’s path through junior categories within the mid-2000s before his F1 debut with McLaren in 2007. That relationship helped be sure that the agreement was made “naturally,” he said.
Vasseur said the coup of signing Hamilton — a deal which surprised many in F1 — meant some difficult conversations with Sainz and with Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff, an old friend.
“As you’ll be able to imagine, it was not the simplest call of my life (with Sainz). One of the difficult was the one with Toto,” Vasseur said. “I’m fully convinced that (Sainz) is a really skilled driver, that he understands that we now have an extended season in front of us. We had an extended discussion, as you’ll be able to imagine, but I will likely be fully supporting Carlos. He’s fully committed.”
Hamilton’s move was announced on Feb. 1 and he said a couple of days later that driving in Ferrari red represented a “probability to meet one other childhood dream.”
Leclerc said he was looking forward to learning from Hamilton.
“We’ve had discussions with, Lewis, especially when the whole lot was announced and official, we texted one another, after all,” he said. “Lewis is an important champion with loads of experience and a lot success. It’s at all times interesting to have a brand new teammate as you learn other ways of working, of driving, and much more so when my latest teammate is a seven-time world champion.”
Ferrari on Tuesday unveiled its 2024 automobile, which the team said had been designed with a heavy emphasis on “drivability” — making the automobile easier for Leclerc and Sainz to drive and more adaptable in a spread of conditions than the sometimes unpredictable 2023 automobile.
Red Bull won all but one among the races last 12 months as Max Verstappen ran away with the drivers’ title. Ferrari struggled for much of the season but was the one other team to take a race victory as Sainz won the Singapore Grand Prix.