EXCLUSIVE: Former F1 strategist Bernie Collins reveals what she thinks Lewis Hamilton needs to do to succeed at Ferrari
Sky Sports Analyst and former F1 strategist Bernie Collins has revealed to SPORTbible why she believes Lewis Hamilton's highly anticipated move to Ferrari could be a 'struggle.'
Collins joined the Sky Sports team last year after working on F1TV as an analyst in 2022 and is now a familiar face on the Sky broadcast throughout F1 race weekends.
Her background as Aston Martin's Head of Strategy has made her an instant hit with fans, with her incredibly detailed analysis of race strategy painting a unique picture for viewers to try and understand.
Sitting down with SPORTbible thanks to YRDS, a content, commercial, and events agency that represents athletes; Collins looked ahead to Hamilton's upcoming move to Maranello, and revealed she expects the seven-time world champion to face a number of challenges.
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"Hamilton is a really strong and intelligent driver," Collins told SPORTbible. "But I think the change to Ferrari is going to be quite a struggle for lots of little reasons."
Collins worked at Aston Martin (formerly Force India and Racing Point) from 2015 and saw numerous current drivers such as Nico Hulkenberg, Sergio Perez, and Sebastian Vettel come and go.
Collins believes it's the 'simple things' that could prove to be the biggest hurdles for Hamilton to overcome.
The Ferrari way, or the wrong way
Moving to any new team on the grid is an incredibly tough ask, but Ferrari, that's an entirely different test for a driver.
With the sheer size of the organisation paired with the almost religious devotion of the Tifosi, Hamilton will be stepping into a totally new environment from a place he has called home for 11 years.
"If you've been with Mercedes for as long as Hamilton has, that becomes a way of life," Collins explained.
Hamilton made the move to Mercedes back in 2013 making him the current longest serving driver on the grid for a single team, and has won six of his seven world titles in the years since.
"It's a completely different team structure, although he's worked with Fred [Vasseur] before. It's an Italian-based team, with different mechanics, and different engineers to work with.
"They're going to have a different way of operating, and it will be simple things like how they do their meetings, or how they do their reports, so there will be lots of differences [for Hamilton] to get on top of," she added.
New car, new engine, new everything
While most people can't tell the difference between each team's cars, as a driver there are a staggering amount of differences to get to grips with which could put Hamilton on the back foot in 2025.
"He's also never driven a non-Mercedes engine before, so it will be the first time driving a Ferrari engine car," Collins told SPORTbible.
"From the outside, they will be very very similar when you think of performance. However, how they harvest energy, how they deploy energy, and how that changes between qualifying and the race, all of those things will be different.
"Even what they name their engine modes, where the switches are on the steering wheel, there's all these things that will be new [To Hamilton]," she revealed.
Hamilton is likely to make his Ferrari debut driving the team's 2022 car in early 2025, due to the 39-year-old's ineligibility to be involved in the 2024 post-season test.
The Charles Leclerc challenge
Another key factor Bernie believes could trouble Hamilton, particularly at the start of his Ferrari career is the strength of his future teammate Charles Leclerc.
"He's not going in as a strong number one driver," Collins stressed.
"Leclerc has been in that seat for a very long time, he's pretty comfortable in there and has proved himself to be really good. You've got one driver who is very comfortable in his position and another driver who is very new so that's going to be a real challenge."
Leclerc joined Ferrari in 2019 after less than a year on the F1 grid and has been the Scuderia golden boy ever since winning eight Grand Prix in the process including three victories in 2024.
The 27-year-old is arguably the best qualifier on the grid, achieving 26 pole positions despite rarely having a race-winning car and out qualifying his teammate in every F1 season he has raced in.
"I would expect Leclerc to be out qualifying Lewis for a number of reasons even if they were totally equal drivers," Collins explained.
"Leclerc is younger so his reactions will be better. Hamilton has struggled against Russell but he has been better in racecraft and I think the same split could be true with Leclerc."
From a strategy point of view, Bernie's real-world experience tells her that being continuously out-qualified could be disastrous for Hamilton, who could end up accommodating the lead driver Leclerc.
"I'm not sure what Ferrari do, but lots of teams will give the driver at the front priority with pitstops and safety cars and those sort of things," Collins disclosed.
"[Hamilton] Is very good at managing the tires, he is very good at knowing what is going on strategically, but it will be interesting to see if any initial drift in qualifying [against Leclerc] results in not getting the right strategic decisions in the race."
Up for the challenge
Despite all the obstacles in his way, it is important to note that Lewis Hamilton, is in fact Lewis Hamilton, and Collins hasn't counted the Brit out on making an instant impact.
"He's a very talented driver so I'm sure he can do it. I think he's relishing the challenge and is really up for it so we might see a totally revitalised Lewis Hamilton which is what everyone wants to see, but I do see it being a really big challenge," Collins concluded.
Hamilton won for the first time since 2021 at Silverstone this year and followed it up with a victory at Spa following his teammate's disqualification.
Despite the second half of 2024 bringing more Q1 exits than race victories, a new team, and a highly competitive Ferrari could be the perfect formula to take Hamilton back to the top step on a regular basis.
Topics: Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, Charles Leclerc, Mercedes, Formula 1
Tom Jenkins