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.
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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.
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.
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He will partner with Charles Leclerc at the Scuderia, with the Monegasque entering his seventh season with the team.
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."
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"If I were the boss of Ferrari," he claimed to formuel1.nl back in 2023, "I would immediately call Max Verstappen's management.
"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."