Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Ferrari, Formula 1, Lewis Hamilton
Ryan Smart
Ferrari have been told that they should have offered a 'blank cheque' to another F1 driver before signing Lewis Hamilton.
Hamilton signed a multi-year contract with Ferrari last year to begin at the start of 2025, and has now completed his first official week as a Scuderia driver.
The seven-time world champion completed 30 laps of the team's Fiorano test track on Wednesday in what was his first experience of driving a Ferrari F1 car.
The team have set up a second private test for the Brit this week, with his mileage counting towards the FIA's Testing Previous Cars (TPC) regulations.
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Full-time drivers are permitted to drive 1,000km in cars from 2023, 2022 or 2021 across four calendar days each year, with Hamilton's two tests both contributing a day to that total.
The Australian Grand Prix gets underway on March 16 in what will be Hamilton's first race for Ferrari.
He will partner with Charles Leclerc at the Scuderia, with the Monegasque entering his seventh season with the team.
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But Dutch racing driver Tom Coronel believes they should have offered a 'blank cheque' to Max Verstappen, claiming he is the only driver - despite Hamilton's seven world titles and record number of race wins - that could win a Drivers' Championship with the team.
He told RacingNews365: "I said last year, before Hamilton announced the switch, if I had been Fred Vasseur [Ferrari team principal], I would have sent the entire Verstappen camp a blank cheque."
"If I were the boss of Ferrari," he claimed to formuel1.nl back in 2023, "I would immediately call Max Verstappen's management.
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"I would give him a blank cheque on which he can fill in the amount per year, as long as Max wears a red suit.
"The company will almost go bankrupt. But if you want to win, that's simply the only option.
"You are only really a successful racing driver if you win the title on a Ferrari."