Former Williams team manager Peter Windsor believes Ferrari would have “a lot of commercial reasons” behind both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton winning a World Championship, so does not believe the signing of the seven-time title-winner was commercially motivated.

Hamilton will have a new team-mate in Leclerc next season, one that knows the Ferrari stable well, too, having risen through their junior ranks before taking on a Ferrari seat in 2019.

Lewis Hamilton not at Ferrari for ‘commercial reasons’

Hamilton’s switch for 2025 brings Formula 1’s most statistically successful driver together with its most storied and globally popular team, with team principal Fred Vasseur acknowledging Hamilton will bring more than solely “pure performance” to the seat next season, with years of title-winning experience to his name at McLaren and Mercedes beforehand.

While having the sport’s most successful driver at its most historic team will doubtless bring about marketing opportunities to go with it, F1 journalist Windsor does not believe the commercial benefits of such a move to be the reason behind Hamilton heading to the Scuderia – with the now-former Mercedes driver having long cited a desire to drive for Ferrari at some point in his career, combined with his personal history with Vasseur going back to his junior racing days.

Alongside that, given Leclerc is a junior product of Ferrari and a popular driver in his own right, there would be commercial benefit to him winning a title himself, should the opportunity arise.

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“I think [there are] a lot of commercial reasons for Charles Leclerc to win the championship as well, from a Ferrari perspective, and I think they’d be very happy with either of them,” Windsor said on his YouTube channel.

“I think, yes, Sir Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari is a big thing. I’m not sure it was the reason that they hired him, commercial reasons.

“I think there’s a bit of Freddy Vasseur and history going back to ART and I think there’s also, he’s just so good and well-rounded and he’s at the right stage in his career to be right there with Charles.

“In other words I don’t think it was: ‘Well, we really want Carlos Sainz, he’s definitely a great racing driver but we’re going to make a lot more money if we have Lewis Hamilton.’ I don’t think there was that much thinking along those lines, from what I gather.”

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