It was only a matter of time before F1 would start whispers over 2024 and kick Silly Season properly into gear, and this time it involves some of the biggest names in the sport, with Lewis Hamilton potentially making a shock switch to the prancing horse in Maranello.
According to Jonathan McEvoy at the UK’s Daily Mail, the Seven-time World Champion has been approached by Ferrari Executive Chairman John Elkann over a potential £40m a year move to the Scuderia in 2024.
Lewis himself is a free agent at the end of the season and with Mercedes openly admitting it could be at least another year until they can mount a title challenge against Red Bull, now might be the time for Lewis to try his luck with a very different factory altogether.
There’s been flirting between the two parties in the past. Hamilton has always said in interviews that he’d like to drive for Ferrari one day, and Lewis might not get another opportunity to do so, given he turns 39 before the 2024 season starts. Meanwhile, Ferrari has always spoken highly of Lewis when asked. Former president Luca Di Montezemolo even said back in 2018 that Lewis would have won them their first World Title in a decade had he been driving the car Sebastian Vettel faltered with as team leader.
But where does that leave Ferrari as a team going forward? One option could be a straight swap with Mercedes for Charles Leclerc, a potential double move that was rumoured earlier in the year with Charles becoming increasingly frustrated with Maranello’s regression as a top-tier team. Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff even had to come out on the record and say that they hadn’t spoken to Leclerc about a move… yet.
On the flip side, Ferrari could raise their floor by moving on from Carlos Sainz Jr. Sainz had a strong start to his Ferrari career, out-scoring Leclerc in his first season in red, and is ahead of him in the standings so far this season. But Sainz has struggled in between, finishing 62 points behind Leclerc in the 2022 Drivers Championship.
Sainz has never really shown he can challenge Leclerc in the long-term, and given he was a hire of the Mattia Binotto era, and new team boss Fred Vasseur has had a long history working with Leclerc, you could make a case it would be easier for Ferrari to move on from the Spaniard.
But do you really want two #1 level drivers in the same team? It may be exciting to put big names together in teams, but they often struggle to co-exist and can harm each other’s individual driver campaigns by taking points off each other.
A Leclerc/Hamilton partnership at Ferrari would give them arguably the strongest line-up in F1. But it could also be seen as a distraction from bigger issues in the team, such as their car being difficult to drive and the internal politics between Vasseur and the previous regime of Binotto.
Do you think Lewis Hamilton could head to Ferrari? And if yes, who do you think he replaces at Ferrari? Let us know in the comments and if you enjoyed the video, be sure to Subscribe!
