Lewis Hamilton has driven a Ferrari Formula 1 car for the first time at his new team’s test track in Italy.
Hamilton started work at the famous Prancing Horse’s Maranello factory for the first time on Monday having left Mercedes at the end of 2024 after 12 years with the Silver Arrows.
The seven-time champion stunned F1 last February by signing for Ferrari from this year in the sport’s highest-profile transfer of all time and his maiden run in one of their iconic red cars has been eagerly anticipated since then.
And on Wednesday morning, Hamilton drove the team’s 2023 car around their Fiorano track, which is adjacent to the team’s factory.
Sky Sports News’ cameras – and reporter Craig Slater – were on hand to capture the historic moment, which occurred as Hamilton began his running at 9.16am local time.
Having released a first photo of Hamilton in a red race suit on Tuesday evening, Ferrari shared the Brit’s new helmet in a social media post on Wednesday morning shortly before he took to the track.
The blockbuster Hamilton-Ferrari move has united F1’s most-successful driver in history with the most-successful team.
Hamilton, who turned 40 earlier this month, has won a record 105 races and a joint-best seven world championships, while Ferrari lead the way on the all-time tables for both drivers’ (15) and constructors’ title (16) triumphs.
But the Scuderia have not won any title since 2008, although a strong end to last season saw them finish within 14 points of new constructors’ champions McLaren in second place.
Why was Hamilton testing an old Ferrari and what’s the test’s purpose?
F1’s testing regulations away from race weekends have long been restricted on cost-control grounds.
All teams are still working flat-out on their new 2025 cars behind closed doors at their respective factories with just over a month to go until pre-season testing takes place in Bahrain (February 26-28).
With the latest challengers still therefore in development, Ferrari have taken advantage of the regulation that allows teams to run cars from certain recent seasons in order to give Hamilton an early taste of their working practices at the race track and the unique aspects of their cars.
Take a look at what Hamilton got up to on his first day at Ferrari
It also gives Hamilton a first chance to sample a Ferrari engine, having exclusively used Mercedes power over the first 18 years of his F1 career at first McLaren and then the German manufacturer’s own team.
The Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) rule for 2025 allows teams to run cars from the 2023, 2022 or 2021 seasons although, in a change for this year, current race drivers’ running in such machinery is capped to 1,000km across a maximum four days through the calendar year.
Ferrari are using the first of their TPC days at Fiorano.
Team boss Frederic Vasseur also indicated before Christmas that Hamilton could feature in one of Pirelli’s tyre test days in January and February.
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