Hotel rooms are packed in the area surrounding Ferrari’s Maranello headquarters as Lewis Hamilton begins a new part of his Formula 1 career in red.
As he posed in a black suit and an F40 in front of Enzo Ferrari’s iconic old house, rumors swirled that he had joined fellow seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher as the rare Ferrari driver to whom would have been offered the opportunity to live in the villa.
"I love seeing the legendary house and rooms, but no, I won’t live there," Hamilton replied, confirming he had the offer.
An unusually large crowd of fans gathered in the rain and freezing temperatures yesterday to take part in the former Mercedes driver’s first official day as a Ferrari driver. The fans had been waiting since dawn.
Inside, Hamilton toured the factory, met managers, engineers and workers, and had a seat adjusted to iron out the final details before his first drive in two different Ferrari single-seaters.
Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc will alternate at the wheel of the 2023 SF-23 and the 2022 F1-75, single-seaters that are at least two years old, as permitted by the Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) regulations.
-Another big test session for the duo would also be planned in Barcelona next week, weather permitting.
Hamilton finally spent a lot of time with his new race engineer, Riccardo Adami, who has also worked with Sebastian Vettel as well as Carlos Sainz.
“My first day!” commented Hamilton after this Monday. “I am grateful to John Elkann, Benedetto Vigna and Fred Vasseur for their trust and for allowing me to join this family. I am very excited to start this new era and to meet and work with a group of extremely talented and inspiring, who have been so welcoming I am determined to do everything I can to offer the team, the organization as a whole and the fans.
This Tuesday Hamilton must continue the meetings, more technical this time, so that the engineers learn his preferences then he must do his first session in a simulator, to familiarize himself with the Ferrari steering wheel buttons and the team’s procedures.
