Lewis Hamilton will ditch Mercedes for Ferrari ahead of the 2025 season.
Lewis Hamilton has denied Piero Ferrari’s claims that the Brit once visited the team’s Maranello factory. Despite owning Ferrari cars in the past, Hamilton insists rocking up at the Scuderia’s F1 base would not have been a good look during his time with Mercedes.
The 39-year-old is gearing up for one final season with Mercedes before heading to Ferrari in 2025, where he has agreed a multi-year contract. Hamilton has spent the past 11 years with the Silver Arrows, picking up six of his seven world titles.
After news of the switch broke, Piero Ferrari, son of the car maker’s founder Enzo and the current vice-chairman, claimed to recall Hamilton visiting Maranello while purchasing a supercar.
“Perhaps not everyone knows that Lewis has always been sensitive to the fascination of the Prancing Horse,” Ferrari told Quotidiano Nazionale. “He’s a customer of ours! He has visited the factory more than once.
He came as a buyer of our cars. He is not just a speed ace. He has a genuine love for supercars. His garage couldn’t be without our cars. One in particular: The model called LaFerrari. Hamilton came to Maranello to give directions on how to set up the car. It was on that occasion that we greeted each other cordially.”
Hamilton seemingly disputes these claims, however, as he was asked during pre-season testing in Bahrain whether he had ever paid a visit to Maranello. “I have not,” he stated.
With a net worth in the hundreds of millions, Hamilton has enjoyed the means to build a formidable car collection outside of F1. And the Stevenage-born veteran can keep adding to it once he links up with the Prancing Horse, who will reportedly pay him in the region of £79million per season
Hamilton sporadically dropped comments about Ferrari in the years preceding his late-career move to the Scuderia, and vice-chairman Piero claims that another one was made during his alleged visit to Maranello.⁴
We had [Sebastian] Vettel in the team and we were happy with Seb,” he said. “We had just renewed the contract with the German, which was going well. Lewis made a joke: if you waited twelve months I would come in.”