A landmark birthday to start out a landmark yr in Lewis Hamiltons profession within the…

Lewis Hamilton celebrates his landmark fortieth birthday on Tuesday, seven days right into a yr that’s set to show one of the crucial important and engaging of his complete profession.

That is Lewis Hamilton the Ferrari driver now, after all, with January 1 having formally marked the profession transition from Mercedes silver to Ferrari purple for Components 1’s most well-known and profitable driver.

Whether or not coincidentally or not, Hamilton has chosen to embark on a late new chapter in his already unparalleled profession on the level in life thought-about a time of reflection on what has gone already and anticipation of the challenges that lie forward.

• All the important thing race and testing dates for Components 1 in 2025
• Who drives the place in F1 2025 | Newest automotive launch date schedule
• Stream all Sky Sports activities channels with NOW

And by becoming a member of the game’s largest group with the intention of serving to them return to championship-winning glory, and taking himself to a record-breaking eighth world title, the problem forward is definitely clear proper at the beginning of arguably F1’s most blockbuster match-up in historical past.

‘Reinvention is highly effective’ – the Hamilton-Ferrari journey lastly begins

Given the union of F1’s most profitable driver and most profitable group was first revealed final February, anticipation ranges have had virtually a yr to construct – and the outcomes of which are definitely already exhibiting early on, mere days into 2025.

On New 12 months’s Day, Ferrari marked the formal begin of the partnership with a brief textual content submit on X – “Good time for a observe @LewisHamilton” – which whereas little greater than a matter-of-fact assertion, gained big social media traction, with the submit being considered virtually 4 million occasions on that platform alone.

Hamilton additionally started the yr by following Ferrari’s official social accounts, even reposting their official announcement of his 2025 arrival from 11 months in the past, whereas sharing an image of him karting as a teenager sporting a purple crash helmet and yellow overalls – the colors of his new group now a long time later.

However his first phrases as a Ferrari driver truly got here on LinkedIn, the place he up to date his new job to: F1 Driver – Ferrari.

“I couldn’t be extra excited for the yr forward,” wrote Hamilton forward of his nineteenth consecutive season on the grid.

“Transferring to Scuderia Ferrari, there’s rather a lot to mirror on.

“To anybody contemplating their subsequent transfer in 2025: embrace the change. Whether or not you are switching industries, studying a brand new ability, and even simply taking over new challenges, keep in mind that reinvention is highly effective.

“Your subsequent alternative is at all times inside attain. Here is to 2025 – a yr of embracing new alternatives, staying hungry, and driving ahead with function. Let’s make it one to recollect. Andiamo #newjob.”

Since then, Hamilton has been spending time in his normal winter retreat on the slopes – posting an image in a purple snow go well with, inevitably, in a continuation of the early 2025 theme – and it’s not till the second half of January that we predict to see him in precise Ferrari racing purple for the primary time when he heads to his new ‘workplace’ in Italy.

Hamilton to make Ferrari monitor bow in outdated automotive

Ferrari are but to formally affirm Hamilton’s precise early actions at their Maranello base later this month, however group boss Frederic Vasseur advised the media simply earlier than Christmas that his debut on the monitor for them was set to be in one of many group’s outdated automobiles.

That is as a result of F1’s sporting laws enable for the Testing of Earlier Vehicles (TPC), beneath sure restrictions, with groups this yr in a position to run their automobiles from 2023, 2022 or 2021 exterior of race weekends and official 2025 testing.

What we do know is that Hamilton’s bow will come on the Scuderia’s personal Fiorano take a look at monitor, which is adjoining to their manufacturing facility in northern Italy, with the precise date later in January to be decided nearer to the time by the climate forecast.

Vasseur has additionally floated the potential for the Briton driving in considered one of Pirelli’s 2026 improvement tyre checks, the primary of which takes place in Magny-Cours on the finish of January.

Whereas no bespoke unveiling occasion for Hamilton’s signing is deliberate, the Briton will likely be offered together with the remainder of the much-changed 2025 grid at F1’s large season launch occasion at London’s O2 on February 18.

Hamilton and new team-mate Charles Leclerc will then assist launch Ferrari’s new 2025 automotive again in Italy a day afterward February 19.

Outlining the build-up to the brand new season, Vasseur mentioned: “We may have the primary take a look at days with TPC and Pirelli after which the launch of the championship first on the 18th [of February], then the launch of the automotive on the nineteenth after which we are going to go on to Bahrain and it will likely be a troublesome sequence till Melbourne.

“But it surely’s true that it is a quick preparation as a result of we now have one thing like 4 weeks on the manufacturing facility earlier than the primary occasion, however it’s like it’s.”

With pre-season testing in Bahrain starting on February 26, when he’ll share driving duties with Leclerc throughout three days with the brand new challenger, Hamilton may have little over a month to actually acclimatise to life and dealing practices at his new group – however his new boss shouldn’t be involved.

“For positive, we all know that we’ll have a whole lot of procedures to assimilate throughout these couple of days, however I believe he is skilled sufficient to do it,” mentioned Vasseur.

“We may have the benefit to have the simulator, so he’ll be capable to do a race simulation, a qualifying simulation within the simulator and to be absolutely ready with the steering wheel and all of the particularities of the automotive.

“However, truthfully, I am not fearful about this, and it isn’t the most important problem.”

Hamilton at 40: Can he nonetheless get again to his finest after 2024 struggles?

Whereas developments in sports activities science imply that seeing top-level sportspeople persevering with to compete into their late 30s and early 40s has develop into extra commonplace in sports activities the place it definitely was not the case in previous eras, reminiscent of soccer and tennis, age alone has by no means been a very dependable bellwether for figuring out when a driver ought to cling up their helmet in F1.

Drivers typically depart the game as soon as they both lose the motivation to race on, or as soon as they’re considered by groups to not be quick sufficient.

Nonetheless, Hamilton will likely be solely the fifth driver thus far this century after Michael Schumacher, Pedro de la Rosa, Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso to race on past their fortieth birthday when he takes to the grid for the season-opener in Australia on March 16.

Certainly Alonso, who himself has simply began a brand new two-year Aston Martin contract and can flip 44 in July, has in recent times redefined what is taken into account doable for a 40-something driver to attain on this sport.

However one factor even the evergreen Spaniard has but to do as a quadragenarian is declare one other race victory. Nigel Mansell stays the final driver to win a grand prix of their fifth decade, the Briton doing so aged 41 on the 1994 Australian GP.

Emulating that Mansell feat will definitely be considered one of Hamilton’s early targets in purple and that’s one thing which must be eminently achievable given the Scuderia completed 2024 strongly – successful three races and ending on all-but two podiums throughout the season’s last 9 races, as they simply missed out to McLaren on a primary Constructors’ Championship title in 16 years.

As probably the most profitable driver of all time, Hamilton doesn’t precisely have something left to show to anybody in F1, but additionally it is true to say that his tough 2024 swansong season at Mercedes did lead some observers and followers to query whether or not he was nonetheless fairly pretty much as good as he as soon as was in his title-winning pomp.

These questions largely took place due to the uncharacteristic and sustained qualifying struggles which noticed report 104-time polesitter Hamilton thrashed 5-19 within the Mercedes head-to-head by George Russell, 13 years his junior.

Talking on a latest version of the Sky Sports activities F1 Podcast, Nico Rosberg – the one considered one of Hamilton’s F1 team-mates earlier than Russell to outqualify the Briton over the course of a season, in 2014 – steered that whereas the seven-time champion nonetheless confirmed loads of proof that his race performances remained supreme final yr, his qualifying points could be taking part in on his thoughts heading to Ferrari.

Rosberg mentioned: “Regardless that he nonetheless appears to be at his very, easiest in race tempo… if you qualify poorly on a regular basis virtually – and he says it himself, he is simply not fast sufficient in qualifying – then that is one thing that was weighing on his shoulders a lot through the finish of the yr.

“Once you get crushed race in race out out of your team-mate who’s youthful and never a world champion… and within the case of Lewis, who’s statistically the GOAT, then that is actually robust.

“Now he has two years at Ferrari, and he’ll 100 per cent be very, very fearful [thinking] ‘what if this type of mine continues? Was it simply the automotive at Mercedes, or was it one thing else, and what if this type of mine continues at Ferrari?’

“If it does it might actually be fairly a painful journey I might say as a result of that is not what Ferrari employed him for.

“Ferrari employed him to be on a degree with Leclerc and battle for world championships.

“So I believe he will likely be very fearful about that and we are able to solely hope that he finds again to his good outdated self with a reset at Ferrari and is as soon as once more the good driver we all know.”

If Hamilton’s stirring LinkedIn message for 2025 is something to go by, then the seven-time champion, armed with new automotive and working in a recent, new setting, is definitely primed to return again firing on all cylinders as soon as extra as he targets what could be a crowning glory to his profession with the storied Prancing Horse.

Watch all 24 race weekends from the 2025 Components 1 season reside on Sky Sports activities F1, beginning with the Australian GP on March 14-16. Stream Sky Sports activities with NOW – No contract, cancel anytime