Lewis Hamilton's 2025 F1 challenger's launch date revealed as Ferrari makes special announcement
Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur has revealed that Lewis Hamilton's 2025 F1 challenger will be launched on February 19. The seven-time F1 world champion will join the Italian team at the beginning of the 2025 season after ending his 26-year association with the Mercedes brand.
While he couldn't debut with the Maranello-based outfit at the post-season test in Abu Dhabi due to sponsorship commitments with Mercedes, Hamilton would have an extensive plan to embed himself with Ferrari. Speaking with F1.com, Vasseur spoke about Hamilton's embedding process and dropped the launch date of the 2025 challenger, saying:
“We will have a couple of test days with Testing of Previous Cars and Pirelli tire test running before Bahrain. It’s a very short period. At the end of the day, you have the launch of the car on Feb 19 – and then we are going directly to Bahrain for the first test and to Melbourne.
“It means this will be a rush, but I’m not worried at all. He [Lewis Hamilton] is coming with experience of this. He did almost 20 seasons in F1 – and he will manage perfectly this period.”
The British driver joined the Mercedes F1 team at the beginning of the 2013 season and achieved massive success, including six of his seven world championships, before leaving the team at the end of 2024. His move to Ferrari caught everyone by surprise but ever since the announcement there has been massive anticipation regarding two of the biggest names in F1 joining hands.
Ferrari team principal speaks about Lewis Hamilton's steep learning curve in 2025
Ferrari team principal Frederic Vassuer has said he knew there wasn't much time for Lewis Hamilton to assimilate into the new surroundings. However, he was confident that the seven-time world champion could rely on his experience.
While speaking to the media in Fiorano, the Frenchman said:
“We know that we will have a lot of procedures to assimilate during these couple of days, but I think he is experienced enough to do it. We’ll have the advantage of having the simulator.
“Obviously he will be able to do a race simulation, quali simulation into the simulator, and to be fully prepared with the steering wheel and the particularities of the race. But honestly, I’m not worried about this. It’s not the biggest challenge.”
Hamilton will join Ferrari on a multi-year deal which will see him race for it at least till the end of the 2026 season. Although Hamilton's salary hasn't been made official to the public, several reports claim he could earn around $446 million for his contract with the Italian team.