Ferrari are likely to go into the 2025 Formula 1 season with particularly high expectations considering how the last campaign finished.
Although they were ultimately pipped to the constructors’ championship by McLaren, Ferrari were in the ascendancy when the season came to an end.
Charles Leclerc was on par with Lando Norris and Max Verstappen through the final third of the season and if it weren’t for Ferrari delivering an update package in Spain that didn’t work, they might be entering 2025 as the reigning champions.
Ferrari had one of the strongest driver line-ups on the grid last year, but it was decided that Carlos Sainz had to make way for the most successful driver in the sport’s history when he became available.
Lewis Hamilton has now arrived at Maranello to try and win his eighth world championship and end Ferrari’s 17-year wait for a title.
Hamilton has already greeted Ferrari staff in Italian and the thousands that turned out to watch his first run in one of their cars at Fiorano highlights how popular his move already is with the team’s fans.
However, the question remains about what is expected of Hamilton this year and who Ferrari plan to back between himself and Leclerc if a serious title challenge is on the cards.
Speaking on the Unlapped Podcast, journalist Laurence Edmondson has provided more details on how Ferrari’s top brass would like the season to unfold.
Ferrari chiefs want Lewis Hamilton to be their number-one driver during the 2025 F1 season
Talking about the driver situation at Maranello, Edmondson explained: “Ferrari are now more steady, I think it’s going to allow Leclerc to get the best from it.
“But it is that weird situation, isn’t it where he has established himself as the number one driver, I would say, at Ferrari, from the time that he started beating Sebastian Vettel in 2019 through to now and now Lewis Hamilton’s come in.
“And again, whoever gets the better start, whoever has more points on the board is the one the team will gravitate towards.
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“Although I do feel the people at the very top of the team, John Elkann, chairman of Ferrari, Benedetto Vigna CEO, I think they might be actually expecting Lewis to be the number one because they’ll know how much money they’re putting into that Lewis Hamilton contract every month, every year.
“And perhaps that’ll be also from a marketing point of view. They know that Lewis is, we’ve just seen from the last couple of months, such a valuable asset.
“They’ll be looking to get returns on that. But I think when it comes down to a purely sporting point of view, it will be whoever performs best on track.
“And I think Leclerc has a really good chance at getting that early lead in the championship and then maintaining it.”
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As Edmondson explains, there is a commercial reason as well as a sporting reason why Ferrari want Hamilton to succeed.
Hamiilton’s social posts have already broken records and that level of engagement is easy to sell to companies who want to invest in the F1 team.
However, Leclerc is likely to be Hamilton’s closest challenger this year if Ferrari have nailed their winter update packages.
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He showed at the end of last season that he’s in arguably the best form of his career and understands this generation of Ferraris perfectly.
That’s not something Hamilton can say given his struggles with Mercedes’ ground-effect cars and even taking a few races to get up to speed could cost him valuable points in the drivers’ championship.
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