Lewis Hamilton replacement applauded after Ferrari F1 swap

Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari replacement has been applauded after a difficult 24 hours for the F1 champion.

The 40-year-old announced on Instagram that his pet dog Roscoe had suffered from cardiac arrest and was placed in a coma, with the F1 community sending in an outpour of love for Hamilton.

However, the Brit had to miss the 2026 Pirelli tyre test in Mugello as a result, where he was replaced by ex-F1 star and Ferrari reserve driver Zhou Guanyu.

Ferrari shared pictures on social media from Zhou’s test in a rainy Mugello, where, alongside Charles Leclerc, they both drove a mule car based on the SF-25.

A smiling Zhou was pictured in the Ferrari garage and in the cockpit of the car, with fans applauding the reserve driver in the comments section for stepping in for Hamilton at such a difficult time.

One fan wrote: “Thank you Zhou for stepping in... Let's hope Roscoe bounces back from this one” whilst another added: “Thank you Zhou for replacing Lewis during this difficult time.”

Zhou proved popular with the Instagram users, with another commenting: “Thank you for stepping in, Zhou Guanyu Your support means everything to us and to Lewis and Roscoe.”

Hamilton misses Pirelli test with Ferrari

Following Roscoe’s health emergency, Hamilton also confirmed he would miss the Ferrari fashion show in Milan as well as the Pirelli tyre test.

Alongside Ferrari, Haas were in action in Mugello, where the programme initially focused on testing the hard compounds for 2026.

However, rain fell late morning on Thursday which allowed for a switch to the 2026 intermediate tyres and Ollie Bearman completed 30 laps and set a fastest time of 1:34.381.

On Friday, rain once again fell on Mugello, with Ferrari stars Zhou and Leclerc taking to the track on the 2026 intermediate and wet tyres.

In the morning, Leclerc was only able to complete 25 laps on the intermediate tyres and set his quickest time of 1:34.914.

Then in the afternoon, Zhou ran on intermediates and extreme wets, before managing to fit in a handful of runs on slicks, completing 75 laps and setting a quickest time of 1:22.012.

Following the rain-soaked test, Pirelli Director of Motorsport Mario Isola said: “Unfortunately, the weather didn’t help.

“That’s a shame, as Mugello is not just a wonderful circuit, but also very demanding on tyres and it would have been useful to get in some consistent running to define the hardest compounds.

“Now we will have to finish the work of analysing the little data we collected over these two days and cross-reference it with that from previous sessions, in order to reach the necessary conclusions.

“As for the softer compounds, we still have two more days of testing after the Mexico City Grand Prix to finalise their homologation. If we want to look for positives, at least we were able to test the wet weather tyres on a real track, gathering data and insights which will be useful for medium to long term development.

“Finally, I’d like to thank Haas and Scuderia Ferrari for their cooperation over these past two days.”

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