EXCLUSIVE: F1 world champion reveals 'logical' winning Hamilton combination

Hamilton, Ferrari, social — Photo: © IMAGO

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EXCLUSIVE: World champion reveals 'logical' winning F1 Hamilton combination

Ferrari could form a winning line-up in 2025 if Hamilton partners with the right person

Jim Kimberley

Wednesday 24 April 2024 17:57

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Ferrari could form a 'logical' winning combination for 2025 when Lewis Hamilton arrives at the team, but it's not with Charles Leclerc.

The Italian squad has not won a world championship since the 2000s, but bringing in the seven-time champion could change all that.

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Although many are excited to see Leclerc partner Hamilton, there is another Maranello employee who a world champion hopes to see work closely with Ferrari's new recruit.

1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve shared his thoughts on Hamilton's Ferrari switch in an exclusive interview with GPFans.

Hamilton: The biggest driver of all time

The Canadian reflected on Ferrari's recent champion hires, saying, "They tried with [Sebastian] Vettel, but Vettel was burnt out by the time he joined Ferrari.

"[Fernando] Alonso had almost worked out, but it became too chaotic.

"Lewis could be the one to finally put the past Ferrari behind and has, and this might be the Ferrari version two. You know you get the biggest driver of all time joining the biggest team of all time.

"It's hard to make it any better than that at a time when Ferrari needs to start winning again. They need something good going on because they've spent the last 10-15 years of 'almost but no'.

"And every time they bring in either a world champion or a young driver like [Charles] Leclerc or [Carlos] Sainz or someone.

"And they go at it for two or three years, but the chaos never stops inside the team. It carries on.

Ferrari's Italian Job

Villeneuve continued to highlight that as well as driver changes, there are switches at the top, too, continuing to say, "Every two years, the team principal gets changed.

"For a time, Ferrari was trying to be only Italian, so they got rid of everything that wasn't Italian and that didn't work out.

"So now they're starting to take non-Italians again and rebuilding an international team, trying to get the best engineers, the best of everything, wherever they're from.

"It's always exciting because there's always news, and if you get Lewis in there and all this mega-complex situation, this could be the thing that settles everything down for a bit and gives Ferrari what they've been missing as a base so they can actually move forward."

A champion's view

After Alonso and Vettel's spells at Ferrari, Villeneuve admitted he's curious to see how Hamilton will compare:

"It will be interesting to see if Lewis manages to do what Alonso and Vettel did not manage to do.

"I never thought Vettel would do it. I thought at the time Alonso might be able to do it because he got close and he was a hard fighter, and Lewis might be the one to do it now.

"And also, Jock [Clear] is in the team, and I'm curious if Jock will become his engineer or not because that was very profitable for Lewis. That would be the logical winning combination at Ferrari."

Lewis Hamilton Ferrari Charles Leclerc Fernando Alonso Sebastian Vettel Jacques Villeneuve