Lewis Hamilton Has Been Confirmed As Ferrari F1 Driver For The 2025 Season

Ferrari announced that Lewis Hamilton will join the Italian team for the 2025 Formula One season on a multiyear contract.

Hamilton will replace Carlos Sainz in the next year after driving for Mercedes this season. He has won a record 103 races.

Last year, Hamilton, 39, signed a two-year contract with Mercedes but activated a release option to leave after one season.

Hamilton said quitting Mercedes “was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make.”

“The moment is right for me to take this step, and I’m delighted to challenge myself. I’m forever grateful to my Mercedes family, especially Toto [Wolff, Mercedes team principal], for his friendship and leadership. I want to finish strong together.

“I am 100% committed to delivering the best performance I can this season and making my last year with the Silver Arrows, one to remember.”

Ferrari, F1’s most successful team and only one to compete in every world championship season, has not won a drivers title since Kimi Raikkonen’s of 2007.

Hamilton, tied with Ferrari icon Michael Schumacher with seven titles, can break the Italian team’s drought and become F1’s most decorated champion.

If so, he would become the first driver to win championships with three teams since Juan Manuel Fangio in 1957.

Hamilton has always been rumored to join Ferrari, but Thursday’s announcement seemed unexpected. ESPN reports that Mercedes was surprised and has not yet named a driver to replace him.

ESPN sources verified Hamilton’s switch Thursday morning. Ferrari chairman John Elkann, a longtime Hamilton fan, wants to pair Charles Leclerc with a star driver.

Ferrari delayed signing Sainz because of Elkann’s goals. Leclerc recently inked a contract deal until 2026.

Leclerc has been with Ferrari since before he started F1, yet despite being the sport’s fastest qualifier, he has struggled to win a championship due to high-profile blunders under pressure.

Hamilton and Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur laughed off reports that he was about to sign with the team before last year’s Monaco Grand Prix, but sources say Elkann kept pursuing Hamilton’s signature even after he signed an extension with Mercedes and that negotiations intensified in December and January.

Hamilton won the 2006 GP2 (now Formula Two) title with Vasseur’s ART team, and they’ve stayed friends.

Hamilton had seemed content to finish his career at Mercedes, the team he joined in 2013 in one of the best driver moves in recent history, until Thursday’s bombshell.

The most dominant period in F1 history saw Mercedes win the constructors championship eight times between 2014 and 2021, with Hamilton winning six of his seven world titles.

After being controversially denied an eighth drivers title on the penultimate lap of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Hamilton failed to win a race in 2022 or 2023.

Last year, he suggested Mercedes needed the best six months of F1 development to catch Red Bull.

Mercedes’ core crew appeared ready to move forward after team head Toto Wolff signed a three-year agreement and Hamilton’s teammate George Russell signed until 2025.

Hamilton’s replacement will be a season-long topic.

“We knew our partnership would come to a natural end at some point, and that day has now come,” Wolff. “We accept Lewis’s decision to seek a fresh challenge, and our opportunities for the future are exciting to contemplate.”

A buddy of Russell, Williams driver Alex Albon had a solid 2023 and is a strong possibility.

Sainz is more likely to join Audi’s 2026 F1 project, but Mercedes may consider him as a last-ditch option.