Why Lewis Hamilton’s final Mercedes season would be a successful first at Ferrari

If Lewis Hamilton can reproduce what he showed in his last Mercedes season in F1 2025, then it will be a solid first year at Ferrari.

That is the opinion put forward by former F1 driver turned pundit Anthony Davidson, who is urging fans to rein in their expectations after Hamilton made the blockbuster switch from Mercedes to Ferrari.

F1 2024 Lewis Hamilton good enough for Ferrari debut year?

Hamilton knew before F1 2024 began that it would be his final season as a Mercedes driver – the team with which he won six of his seven World Championships, and set records such as most F1 wins (105), poles (104) and podiums (202) – with a multi-year Ferrari deal already agreed for the following year.

However, F1 2024 was not the ideal send-off from Mercedes for Hamilton. Despite the highs of returning to winning ways at Silverstone, while he took a second victory for the season at Spa, Hamilton suffered over one lap against then team-mate George Russell, falling to a 19-5 defeat in the qualifying head-to-head.

With statements like his “definitely not fast anymore” self-assessment in Qatar, and admission that he thought of leaving Mercedes there and then in the immediate aftermath of a disappointing Brazilian Grand Prix, questions started being asked of Hamilton, and whether Ferrari had made a grave error in releasing Carlos Sainz in favour of the seven-time World Champion.

However, with Hamilton stepping into a completely new culture and environment at Ferrari, Davidson claims that Hamilton’s 2024 performance levels would be a good starting point at Ferrari, even if that may sound underwhelming to Hamilton and his fans.

“The cars were pretty evenly matched, the Ferrari and the Mercedes over last year, Ferrari probably just had the slightly upper hand,” Davidson began when speaking to RN365.

“But Mercedes did obviously win races, Lewis had a brilliant drive at Silverstone, and I think a good year for him will be to start off in year one pretty much just replicating what he’s done at Mercedes in his final year.

“That will be a good starting point, but I know he’ll be wanting more, and I think some fans will be expecting more, but it is tough, changing teams is tough.”

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Hamilton’s qualifying performances especially will be under the magnifying glass when F1 2025 gets underway, considering his new team-mate at Ferrari Charles Leclerc is regarded as one of the fastest drivers on the F1 grid over one lap.

But with Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur never shy to stress that the points are scored on Sunday, Davidson expects Hamilton to be just fine in that regard.

“He’ll be happy with out-qualifying Leclerc for a good handful of races,” said Davidson on Hamilton. “But then I am fully expecting him to match Leclerc when it comes to speed in the races and he is probably better [than Leclerc] through his own experience.

“Lewis’ instinctive ability to manage tyres, he’s always had strong race pace even right through to Abu Dhabi, and it was never something he’s had to fight or struggle against, and it was just down to qualifying, but I’m fully expecting his speed to be there in the races versus Leclerc.”

And it is Hamilton’s race pace which Vasseur has pointed to when batting away any suggestions of concern from Ferrari over Hamilton.

When quizzed on Hamilton’s F1 2024 struggles by Sky Sports News, Vasseur replied: “Yeah but, first of all, we are well placed to know that it’s on Sunday that you are scoring points.

“But I think we fell a little bit in 2023 also, because we were probably the best in quali, but we struggled in the race.

“It means that we have to keep the focus on the race, a decent step forward in ’24 but we have to keep this approach.

“Charles for sure, I think, improved a lot on the race management, tyre management between 2023 and ’24, it means that we have to keep the same momentum and the same approach for the next championship.”

Vasseur was remaining true to a stance he had first adopted at the Qatar Grand Prix, where Hamilton’s “definitely not fast anymore” admission was brought up to the Ferrari boss.

Vasseur pointed to the proceeding Las Vegas GP where Hamilton had qualified P10 only, but recovered to a P2 finish on race day, as Russell led a Mercedes one-two across the line.

“Not at all,” the Ferrari boss stressed when asked if Hamilton’s comments about his own speed concerned him. “Have a look at the 50 laps that he did in Vegas.

“Starting P10, finishing on the gearbox of Russell, I’m not worried at all.”

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