When the news arrived that Lewis Hamilton’s first days of testing for Ferrari away from Fiorano didn’t go to plan at the Circuit de Catalunya.
Testing at the venue of the Spanish Grand Prix has taken place for some time even if official pre-season running has been moved to Bahrain, but Ferrari decided it was the perfect venue to get Lewis Hamilton up to speed for the 2025 Formula 1 season.
Hamilton and Charles Leclerc drove several laps at Fiorano before arriving in Barcelona to do a much longer run, although they’re both limited to 1,000km of driving outside of official pre-season testing this year.
The seven-time world champion has a difficult task on his hands, getting used to a completely new team, running a power unit he’s never worked with before, new brakes and plenty of different processes and procedures behind the scenes.
Getting used to all of these things will take time and Hamilton and Ferrari don’t have long to make that adjustment before the first race in Australia in March.
Hamilton has been told he needs to learn from Leclerc if he’s going to challenge his new teammate, but when he crashed in Barcelona last week, it brought his session in the car to a premature end and completely stopped the 27-year-old from jumping in their 2023 F1 car altogether.
However, Peter Windsor – speaking on his YouTube channel – believes that Hamilton’s crash should be getting his fans excited, rather than worrying them and has explained exactly why.
Peter Windsor tells Lewis Hamilton fans they should be ‘delighted’ with Ferrari testing crash
Reflecting on Hamilton’s first days of proper testing with Ferrari, Windsor said: “On the face of it, Lewis Hamilton’s first proper test with Ferrari which took place in Barcelona last week was not the greatest of tests in that it ended in a massive shunt coming out of the last corner.
“But on the face of it you would think therefore, a little bit of a difficult first test for Lewis at his new team and what will be the repercussions of that.
“My take is that it was actually a very, very good test for Lewis and I think all Lewis Hamilton fans can feel delighted at the way that test went.
“Yeah, there was the shunt, but let’s look at the build-up to that shunt and the reasons for it.
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“Nothing to do with a bump on the road or any of that stuff, it was all tied to how good Lewis felt in the car and how he’s feeling within the team, he feels great in the team.
“And that car, the 2023 Ferrari, which let’s face it was not the greatest of Grand Prix cars built by Ferrari.
“But guess what, in that car, Lewis Hamilton felt better than he’s felt certainly over the last couple of years in Formula 1 in the Mercedes, probably going back I would think to the beginning of 2022.
“He loved the feeling of feeling the road again and actually being a part of the car and kind of being on top of the car and getting it to be a part of his DNA and what he does in a race car, he loved that.”
How Ferrari felt about Lewis Hamilton’s Barcelona testing crash
Unfortunately for Ferrari, Hamilton’s shunt meant they lost some precious time helping the 40-year-old get ready for his debut in Melbourne.
However, if they were that concerned, they would have stopped Antonio Giovinazzi and Dino Beganovic from jumping into the car the following day and given Hamilton and Leclerc more time to get up to speed in the SF-23.
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Hamilton will take part in a Pirelli tyre test before pre-season testing in Bahrain and that will give him his first opportunity to drive last year’s car.
The setup will be very different to the current regulations, meaning Hamilton will be more likely to learn about Ferrari’s race day and testing processes than the nuances of the car.
He’ll have to wait until Ferrari shakedown their 2025 machine in the run-up to Bahrain to start to understand whether he made the right call to leave Mercedes last year.
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