Lewis Hamilton will join the likes of John Surtees and Nigel Mansell as the 13th Briton to race for Ferrari in Formula 1 with his debut in the Australian Grand Prix this March.
The first round of the 2025 Formula 1 season is now under a month away, with the pinnacle of motorsport staging the opening race in Melbourne for the first time since 2019. Hamilton has only won the Australian Grand Prix twice so far in his career at the 2008 and 2015 races.
Valtteri Bottas won in Melbourne the last time the Formula 1 calendar opened Down Under in 2019. The Finn beat pole-sitter Hamilton by 20.886 seconds for a Mercedes one-two and he proceeded to deliver Bottas’ iconic, ‘To whom it may concern’, line over the team’s radio.
Nigel Mansell claims it’d be ‘a dream’ to see Lewis Hamilton win on his Ferrari debut in Australia
Hamilton will now make his debut for Ferrari at the Australian GP on March 16 after joining from Mercedes. The seven-time F1 champion called time on his stay with the Silver Arrows last February when Hamilton signed a two-year Ferrari contract worth up to £83m per year.
After a year-long farewell tour, the Stevenage-born star is now dressed in red and Hamilton lapped Ferrari’s 2025 F1 car for the first time at Fiorano on Wednesday. He is set to become the 13th British F1 driver to race for Ferrari and the first full-time since Eddie Irvine in 2000.
| DRIVER | YEARS AT FERRARI | GRAND PRIX WINS | DRIVERS’ TITLES |
| Peter Whitehead | 1950 | 0 | 0 |
| Mike Hawthorn | 1953-55, 1957-58 | 3 | 1 |
| Peter Collins | 1956-58 | 3 | 0 |
| Tony Brooks | 1959 | 2 | 0 |
| Cliff Allison | 1960 | 0 | 0 |
| John Surtees | 1963-66 | 4 | 1 |
| Mike Parkes | 1966-67 | 0 | 0 |
| Jonathan Williams | 1967 | 0 | 0 |
| Derek Bell | 1968 | 0 | 0 |
| Nigel Mansell | 1989-90 | 3 | 0 |
| Eddie Irvine | 1996-2000 | 4 | 0 |
| Oliver Bearman | 2024 | 0 | 0 |
| Lewis Hamilton | 2025-26 (expected) | 0 | 0 |
Mansell was the 10th British Ferrari driver over the 1989 and 1990 seasons, between spells with Williams which yielded his drivers’ title in 1992. Now, the sight of Hamilton winning on his Ferrari debut in Australia would be Mansell’s ‘dream come true’ as it would set the tone.
“It would be a dream come true for Lewis to win the first race with Ferrari because that then sets the pattern for the rest of the season,” Mansell told the Daily Mail.
Lewis Hamilton winning his eighth F1 title with Ferrari would be ‘magical’
It would be the perfect way for Hamilton to start his career as a Ferrari driver by winning the Australian Grand Prix, as Mansell says. The Scuderia have also performed well in Melbourne lately after Sebastian Vettel (2017, 18), Charles Leclerc (2022) and Carlos Sainz (2024) won.
Hamilton would also only further enhance Mansell’s dream if the Briton can go on to win an eighth drivers’ title after joining Ferrari. He feels it would be ‘magical’ if the 105-time Grand Prix winner seals the Scuderia’s first F1 drivers’ championship since Kimi Raikkonen in 2007.
The 71-year-old continued: “Ferrari are so long overdue to win the drivers’ and constructors’ championships. So, with Charles Leclerc and Lewis, I really hope that they get it done. It’d be magical for Lewis to win another world championship and I wish him all the best.”
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