Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc are closing in on their first runs in Ferrari’s 2025 Formula 1 car.
Although Charles Leclerc’s testing plans are unknown, Lewis Hamilton may only be a couple of weeks away from his first run in a Ferrari this year.
Hamilton’s testing program will be limited before the three days of pre-season running in Bahrain, but that shouldn’t be a huge concern given he’ll only be able to use Ferrari’s 2022 and 2023 cars in his private runs.
Team principal Frederic Vasseur has a very difficult job on his hands trying to keep both of his drivers happy.
Leclerc has been with Ferrari his entire career and if they provide him with a championship-winning car, he’ll hope that the team will back him to go on and try and win his first title.
However, Hamilton is the big-money signing and already a seven-time world champion and he’ll be desperate to break Michael Schumacher’s record during his first year at Ferrari.
Given the uncertainty surrounding 2026 and the major regulation change coming, both drivers won’t want to risk missing out if a championship is on the line this year.
James Hinchcliffe explains how Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton could have different Ferrari cars in 2025
F1 pundit and former IndyCar star James Hinchcliffe was speaking on The Red Flags Podcast about Ferrari’s newest driver pairing.
Hinchcliffe was asked if Ferrari could treat Hamilton and Leclerc equally and he said: “No, I mean, not to a hundred per cent.
“I believe that they will try their absolute hardest to do that. But again, that’s not the best way to win a driver’s championship. We just talked about that.
“But there’s always going to be a guy that gets to leave pit lane first or second, depending on where you want to be in qualifying.
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“There’s always going to be the guy that has to pit first. Like you can never make it a hundred per cent exactly the same.
“Are they going to go as far as not bringing an upgrade to the track if they can only produce one in time? No, of course not.
“And if there’s a piece that will make a car faster, it will be at the racetrack. Who gets it? It doesn’t matter.
“The cars won’t be even that weekend. Who gets it? I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc voted Formula 1’s strongest driver pairing in 2025
The season isn’t set to start for more than two months, but already fans are getting very excited about the upcoming campaign.
The official Formula 1 account asked fans to vote on which pairing they believed would be the strongest in 2025.
Williams are considered to have a stronger pairing than Mercedes, but Ferrari came out on top of their rivals by quite some margin.
READ MORE: Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton’s life outside F1 from net worth to family
Hamilton will hope the extreme issues he faced at Mercedes won’t persist at Ferrari, but he’ll have his work cut out against Leclerc.
The Monegasque driver is seriously quick in qualifying and if Ferrari have to make some tricky decisions on strategy during races, they’ll have to prefer the driver who’s in front on the track.
That could make Hamilton’s life harder, but the 40-year-old hasn’t won more than 100 Grand Prix without overcoming a lot of adversity.
