Lewis Hamilton has been issued a blunt warning by Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur, despite the team’s strong start to the 2024 season.
Hamilton is poised to switch to the Italian team ahead of the 2025 campaign, ending his lengthy tenure with Mercedes. The seven-time world champion will join a Ferrari outfit that is currently pushing reigning constructors’ champions Red Bull hard in 2024, while his present employers Mercedes trail behind. Ferrari have amassed 120 points from the opening four races, compared to Red Bull’s 141, and have secured at least one podium finish at every Grand Prix so far. They even achieved a one-two in Australia, with Carlos Sainz leading home team-mate Charles Leclerc.
Hamilton, meanwhile, is down in ninth position in the overall standings after enduring a challenging Japanese Grand Prix in April. Sainz, the man Hamilton is set to replace, finished third in that race, but Vasseur has stressed that Ferrari’s early success is no guarantee of continued dominance. “We started better than last year, but there is still work to be done and there always will be,” Vasseur told La Repubblica. “The team only had one podium this time last year, as well as just one race win all season,” reports the Mirror. “The world of competition is like a person’s life accelerated to the maximum – things can change quickly, going between good and bad. Stasis does not exist, everything flows quickly,” he added.
Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has expressed his exasperation at the repetitive queries regarding Hamilton and Sainz post-Suzuka, remarking, “We have the same question each weekend. Do a copy paste of my reply of last week. Next one.”
While Hamilton’s switch to Ferrari is confirmed, Mercedes are yet to reveal who will fill the Brit’s shoes. Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team boss, has suggested that F2 sensation Andrea Kimi Antonelli is in pole position for the seat.
“[Antonelli] is definitely a very strong contender,” Wolff commented on the young driver’s prospects. “I want to see how his F2 season develops, but we will wait and see what happens with some of the other drivers in F1. I don’t doubt his raw speed, talent and ability.”
“We wouldn’t have supported him from go-karting until now if we didn’t believe that he has the potential to go into F1 and do so with Mercedes. Many young drivers have shown in the past that you can do that step. My feeling at the moment is that I don’t want to rush [the decision], because Kimi is part of the ideas for next year and is very much in the strongest position, and that’s why we don’t need to rush into any other decision. Obviously, some of the other top drivers are going to make a decision on what to do soon, but there’s a feeling that points me in a direction not to take the decision too quickly.”
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