Ferrari have every ingredient to win – Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton says Ferrari have “absolutely every ingredient to win” as the team launched the car he hopes will take him to an eighth world title.

Hamilton and team-mate Charles Leclerc did an initial test of the SF-25 car at Ferrari’s Fiorano test track on Wednesday.

Hamilton told BBC Sport in an exclusive interview that he “couldn’t really say too much” about the car but that it “feels like a car I am getting on well with”.

The former Mercedes driver added: “From seeing the passion, everything under one roof, which I’ve never experienced before, this team has absolutely every ingredient to win.

“But we’re also aware we have to continue to work. We have to improve and elevate everywhere – not everywhere but in certain areas, and I have no doubt that we can do that.”

Hamilton, who started work acclimatising to Ferrari last month, is staying at the factory in his motorhome during the week, so he can be embedded with the team as much as possible.

He said: “I have genuinely loved every day I have been here.

“It’s a place you genuinely don’t really want to leave in the day. Everything’s here. Even my motorhome is here so I don’t ever leave.”

Hamilton, 40, has driven the team’s 2023 and 2024 cars in short tests in the past weeks, before experiencing the 2025 car, which will now be shipped to Bahrain for next week’s official F1 pre-season test from 26-28 February.

The first race of the season is the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on 14-16 March.

Hamilton said: “[We are] getting everything set up so when we get to race one it is not hopefully the first six months that you are getting this tuned, you already have them ready.

“So we have put a huge amount of work into that, and also trying to speed up the process of getting to know each other and how they like to work and how I like to work.

“You can’t really short-cut that, you build trust and relationships over time, as you know, But every day’s been exciting, I literally wake up with excitement every day.”

Ferrari missed out on the constructors’ championship by just 14 points to McLaren in 2024, and Vasseur told BBC Sport that “to be champion” was how they would judge whether it had been a successful year.

The Frenchman said having the driver many believe to be the fastest over one lap in Leclerc, and Hamilton as the most successful of all time was “a good start and a good problem – they have a good collaboration and a huge mutual respect and it is part of the performance of the team”.

Both Hamilton and Leclerc hope they can be the driver to deliver Ferrari’s first drivers’ title since 2007.

Hamilton added: “What’s key is we never want to get ahead of ourselves. We don’t know where everyone else is. We know all the other teams will be doing a great job as well, so we’re just keeping focused on taking one step at a time.

“I am still acclimatising to the Ferrari car. It is a lot different to what I have lived with for the last few years in this generation of cars, but also controls and everything.

“Over the last 10 years, I have been used to a certain way of working and I am still adapting to those things.”

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur said Hamilton had “brought a new energy to the team” since joining.

Leclerc said the car had given him no bad surprises on Wednesday and added he felt Hamilton was joining the team “at the right time” because of the changes Vasseur had made in the last two years.

“Fred has a very big strength at keeping the emotional level of the team at a good level,” Leclerc said. “We have been so much more solid on that in the past years.

“Lewis joining the team has been a big boost and has been amazing in so many areas. I feel like the team is very calm and clear in what is the direction to work in and not being affected by everything going on in the team.

“We had a good car but needed more performance, and that is where we focused on this car. We focused on small things in every area.”

Hamilton said of his new team-mate: “Charles is very embedded in this team. He is very fast and I am completely aware of that.

“It is not going to be easy to beat him, but we will work together and have some great races, I hope.”