Lewis Hamilton
, only Lewis Hamilton and no one other than Lewis Hamilton knows in detail the reasons that led him to agree with
Ferrari
on one of the loudest transfers in the history of
Formula 1
after 11 seasons at
Mercedes
(plus the one that will begin on 2 March in Bahrain), in which he achieved 82 victories and six championships.
To the millions and the contract conditions that may have been negotiated, and to the sporting challenge of achieving a historic eighth title, undoubtedly important factors, there was surely also the
seduction generated by the most important team in the history
of the premier category of the world motorsport.
The partnership between the driver with the most titles (7, the same as
Michael Schumacher
), the most wins (103), the most pole positions (104) and the most podiums (197) and the team with the most wins (244), the most pole positions ( 249) and more drivers' (15) and constructors' (16) championships seemed chimerical until a few hours ago.
“
I still feel at home in this family.
“I see myself with Mercedes until my last days
,” the Englishman had said in March of last year.
“There is no place I would rather be
,” he had emphasized at the end of August, when extending his link with the Brackley-based team.
However,
a third party appeared these days and that romance was broken.
Hamilton, who is 39 years old and has a presumably short future in the category, as he warned more than once, will seek his eighth title with a team that in the last two years showed good progress, but was very far from being able to fight for the crown. with
Red Bull
and
in 2023 he also finished behind Mercedes in the Constructors' Cup
, after a series of errors and strategic failures that put him at the center of questions.
However,
Ferrari is much more than that
: it is also the most prestigious team, the one with the most support among fans and the one for which (almost) any driver wants to race at some point.
The
Scuderia
, founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1947, is the only one that participated in the 74 seasons of Formula 1 since 1950 and the one that heads almost all the statistical departments of the category, although it is now experiencing lean days: its last championship of drivers achieved it in 2007, with the Finnish
Kimi Räikkönen
.
That is the second longest drought in its history, after the 21 years without celebrations that elapsed between South African
Jody Scheckter 's title, in 1979, and
Michael Schumacher
's first
in the team, in 2000. And in the Constructors' Cup It has not been imposed since 2008.
Fifty-two drivers of 18 nationalities represented Ferrari in the 1073 competitions in which it participated in these 74 years
.
Only nine won titles, among them
Juan Manuel Fangio
(in 1956).
Schumacher achieved five in a row at the dawn of the 21st century (between 2000 and 2004) and other team heroes such as the Italian
Alberto Ascari
(1952 and 1953), the British
John Surtees
(1964) and the Austrian
Niki Lauda
(1975 and 1977) also celebrated.
).
Michael Schumacher, the most successful among the nine drivers who were champions with Ferrari.
Photo: Antonio Calanni / AP.
But there is also a long list, which Hamilton will try not to add, of
notable riders who could not consecrate themselves in a red car
.
Among them stands out the quadruple French champion
Alain Prost
, who arrived in Maranello in 1990, after having won three titles with
McLaren
, to try to beat his former employer, who had
Ayrton Senna
as his emblem.
But in his two years at Ferrari he capitulated to the Brazilian before moving on to Williams to claim his fourth crown.
Another quadruple champion, the German
Sebastian Vettel
, remained in the team for six years (between 2015 and 2020), in which he failed to defeat Hamilton.
The Spanish Fernando Alonso
, the British
Nigel Mansell
, the Austrian
Gerhard Berger
, the Swiss
Clay Regazzoni
and the Canadian
Gilles Villeneuve
, among others,
were also unable to celebrate a championship with the team .
But Ferrari is more than races or championships won.
It has long crossed the limits of a Formula 1 team. It is also a symbol of status, technological development and excellence.
And it has become a cultural icon.
Its logo, the
Prancing Horse
, is universally identifiable, more so than that of any other automaker (even surpassing Mercedes Benz's three-pointed star).
James Bond
fans
can recount in great detail the opening scene of
GoldenEye
, in which
Famke Janssen
, aboard a Ferrari F355, and
Pierce Brosnan
, in an Aston Martin DB5, star in a dizzying race on a mountain road. on the Côte d'Azur.
That is just one of the many easily identifiable appearances of a vehicle from the Italian brand in a film or series.
They have also been seen in other artistic expressions and even the 296 GTB model is part of the popular video game Fortnite.
Ferrari iconography is not limited to this.
In 2023, the company reported profits of $5.6 billion.
This was a product, to a large extent, of the sale of vehicles, but also of the marketing of products as diverse as T-shirts, pens, scale models, bags, leather jackets, glasses, watches and sneakers.
All with the
Prancing Horse
logo .
A crowd of Ferrari supporters in one of the stands at the Imola racetrack.
Photo: Andrej Isakovic / AFP.
The combination of sport, history and marketing has earned Ferrari a huge following of fans in all corners of the planet
.
It will be left to sociologists to explain the phenomenon of crowds passionately expressing their passion for a corporation dedicated to the manufacture of motor vehicles, a behavior that in Argentina is replicated in the
Turismo Carretera
with fans of
Ford
,
Chevrolet
,
Torino
and
Dodge
. .
But what happens, happens.
In Baku and in Las Vegas, in Singapore and in Sao Paulo, in Suzuka and in Montreal, in Jeddah and in Mexico City.
At any racetrack in the world where Formula 1 takes its show, the stands are filled with red t-shirts and flags with the Italian brand logo.
To date, no team has managed to stop this mass movement that will support Lewis Hamilton from 2025 onwards.
Eight years ago, when he enjoyed that support, Sebastian Vettel stated:
“Everyone is a Ferrari fan.
Even if they say no, they are Ferrari fans.”