Lewis Hamilton will feel as if he has infiltrated enemy lines when he joins Ferrari in 2025. He’s spent much of his F1 career to date battling the Scuderia for the biggest prizes.
Even in his very first season, Hamilton fought Kimi Raikkonen – as well as teammate Fernando Alonso – for the championship. Raikkonen mounted one of F1’s great comebacks to win the title by a single point.
A year later, with Alonso gone and Raikkonen struggling, it was Hamilton vs Felipe Massa. Massa’s engineer Rob Smedley cried uncontrollably for an hour after Hamilton’s last-corner pass on Timo Glock denied him the championship.
| CATEGORY | HAMILTON | FERRARI |
| Races | 356 | 1098 |
| Championships | 7 | 31 |
| Wins | 105 | 248 |
| Win % | 29.5 | 22.6 |
| Poles | 104 | 253 |
| Pole % | 29.2 | 23 |
| Podiums | 202 | 829 |
| Podium % | 56.7 | 75.5 |
From 2010, Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull were dominant. But the rivalry between Hamilton and Ferrari persisted amid multiple incidents with Massa and close competition with their new signing Alonso.
Hamilton left McLaren for Mercedes at the end of 2012, and by the start of F1’s turbo/hybrid era, he had the platform to dominate. It took Ferrari three years to produce a car worthy of challenging.
Vettel got within 46 points in 2017, and while the margin was 88 the year after, that doesn’t reflect how close it was for much of the season. Indeed, the German led the championship just before the halfway stage after winning Hamilton’s home race at Silvertone.
Sebastian Vettel was ‘isolated’ after Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton realisation
The Scuderia changed their driver line-up after the ultimate disappointment of 2018, with academy star Charles Leclerc replacing the ageing Raikkonen. Kevin Magnussen was of interest to Ferrari, but Leclerc improved over the course of his rookie season at Sauber to secure a promotion.
In their first year together, Leclerc immediately finished above Vettel, though the margin was close at 24 points. The Monegasque scored his first Grand Prix victories in Belgium and, more significantly, Italy, while Vettel won in Singapore.
Before the delayed 2020 season had even commenced, Ferrari announced that Vettel would be leaving the team, with Carlos Sainz replacing him. According to The Race’s Mark Hughes, this was an inevitability after he lost out to Leclerc.
Ferrari wanted to ‘benchmark’ Vettel amid a ‘belief within’ that he simply wasn’t ‘as quick as Hamilton’. Doubts about his ceiling had emerged during their title battles.
Leclerc effectively ‘took the team off Vettel’, who was left ‘isolated’ before he left. He spent his last two years in F1 with Aston Martin before retiring.
Lewis Hamilton leaves F1 pundit ‘crying’ with his tribute to Sebastian Vettel
Vettel was the youngest four-time world champion in F1 history, but he wouldn’t add to that haul of titles in the last nine seasons of his career. He didn’t achieve his ultimate goal at Ferrari, but he still retains the respect of his fellow greats.
Alonso called him a ‘great champion’ when he announced his retirement. Meanwhile, Hamilton says Vettel is ‘far more than a driver’.
Former F1 strategist and F1TV pundit Ruth Buscombe was ‘crying’ after she read Hamilton’s message to his old rival. Their relationship has become increasingly warm as time has passed.
Indeed, Hamilton called Vettel to ask for advice about Ferrari engineer Riccardo Adami before he moves to Maranello. He has experience working with Adami from his days in scarlet red.
