Lewis Hamilton has received a boost ahead of his move to Ferrari, with the team’s F1 2025 car set to be “completely new” compared to this year’s SF-24.

Hamilton is due to start work at Ferrari next month, having announced back in February that he will join Ferrari on a multi-year contract from the F1 2025 season.

Ferrari confirm Project 677 will be 99% ‘new’ for Lewis Hamilton F1 2025 debut

The 39-year-old stands as the most decorated driver in F1 history, having equalled Michael Schumacher’s long-standing record of seven World Championships in 2020 before becoming the first man to reach 100 grand prix wins and pole positions the following year.

Ferrari enjoyed their strongest season in some time in F1 2024, with Charles Leclerc and Hamilton’s predecessor Carlos Sainz collecting five wins between them as the Scuderia narrowly missed out on the Constructors’ Championship to McLaren.

It has offered fresh hope that Hamilton could secure a record eighth title with Ferrari in F1 2025, having been denied the milestone by Max Verstappen in highly controversial circumstances at the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

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Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur, who oversaw Hamilton’s title-winning GP2 (now F2) season as boss of ART Grand Prix in 2006, has provided an update on the team’s preparations for next season.

And he has revealed that the F1 2025 car – codenamed Project 677 – will be completely new as Ferrari target a title charge.

According to various outlets, Vasseur said: “If it will be competitive, we’ll find out in Bahrain [pre-season testing].

“Sometimes you don’t realise you’re taking risks until afterward. The car will be completely new; I think we’ll have less than one per cent of the parts in common with the 2024 car.

“It’s a different project, but the same applies to everyone.

“We can’t say now if 2025 will be our year, but I trust the project we’re working on.

“It will still be an intense challenge like the one we just completed.

“I am very proud of how we tackled difficulties this year, but we must take another step towards consistency.”

A number of design details related to Project 677 have surfaced over recent months, with the move to a pullrod front suspension layout arguably the most significant to have emerged to date.

A pullrod front suspension – favoured by the likes of McLaren and Red Bull – is believed to enhance airflow towards the car’s complex underbody, with the floor generating a significant proportion of the car’s overall downforce under the current ground-effect regulations.

The move towards a pullrod front suspension is said to have been directly influenced by Hamilton’s arrival, with his driving style closer in nature to Leclerc than Sainz.

Ferrari are also set to retain their divisive pullrod rear suspension layout despite the departure of former technical director Enrico Cardile during the F1 2024 season.

Ferrari and customer outfit Haas are the only two teams still competing with a pullrod rear suspension, with their rivals all opting for a pushrod layout.

Ferrari are understood to view the pullrod rear suspension as a key factor behind the 2024 car’s excellent tyre management.

Cardile, who announced that he will join Aston Martin in July, revealed the team found no significant performance differences between a pullrod and pushrod rear suspension layout when asked by media including PlanetF1.com at the launch of the SF-24 in February.

A revised wheelbase and adjustments to the internal mechanisms of the gearbox are also set to feature on Project 677.

Development of the 2025 Ferrari is being led by former Mercedes engineer Loic Serra, who was appointed to the role of chassis technical director ahead of his Ferrari arrival in October having initially been recruited to work under Cardile.

Serra is understood to be close to Hamilton, having shared the driver’s reservations over the failed zero-pod design concept pursued by Mercedes under former technical director Mike Elliott across 2022/23.

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