Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, Formula 1
Ryan Smart
Lewis Hamilton has admitted that he needs to make one major change before the 2025 Formula 1 season after testing the Ferrari SF-25 for the first time - and it might concern fans.
Hamilton and team-mate Charles Leclerc touched down in Maranello on Wednesday morning to take part in a public test session at the Scuderia's test track.
Leclerc set a time of 56.060 seconds around the circuit, which is less than a tenth under the all-time lap record set by Michael Schumacher in 2004.
Hamilton, meanwhile, was around 0.8 seconds slower than his new team-mate. But neither time is as yet representative as both drivers were using a Pirelli tyre compound that will not be used in 2025, while fuel and tyre wear data have also not been published.
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It is Hamilton's first season outside of Mercedes - they were stakeholders in the McLaren team that Hamilton drove for between 2007 and 2013 - since he debuted in Formula 1.
The 40-year-old has admitted that it has taken him time to adapt to the different driving style of the Ferrari - and while he knows he will soon be exactly where he wants to be, he will need to change one thing that he has known for his entire career before the season-opening Australian Grand Prix takes place on March 16.
"I'm not at the level I want yet, and I know it," Hamilton told media after the Maranello test.
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"Everything is different, I have to work on it a lot."
Hamilton was asked by Sky Sports F1 at this week's F175 launch about what he has already seen on the inside at Ferrari - and he gave a definitive answer.
"I worked with two world championship winning teams before," he said. "I know what a winning team looks and feels like.
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"The passion here is like nothing you've ever seen. They've got absolutely every ingredient they need to win a world championship. It's just about putting all the pieces together.
"We've got a great leader in Fred [Vasseur, team principal], John [Elkann, chairman], in Benedetto [Vigna, CEO].
"Everyone just has a really calm and good approach. No-one's like, 'We're perfect in every single area'. Everyone's like, 'We need to elevate everywhere'. They're leaving no stone unturned to try and do that."