Ferrari To Add F1 Royalty: Sir' Lewis Hamilton Set To Shift From Mercedes For 2025
Now that the 7-time F1 Champion is prepared to make the leap over to Ferrari, what does the future hold for his now impending former team?
As reported by multiple sources to ESPN, the landscape of Formula 1 is looking to change, with Lewis Hamilton scheduled to jump from Mercedes to Ferrari for 2025.
This move ironically comes off the heels of the announcement of Andretti's F1 bid being rejected yesterday, resulting in many questions revolving around what the potential future could have been for Hamilton if the American-based team were to join the series.
Nevertheless, the move for Hamilton will result in Carlos Sainz leaving Ferrari, potentially seeing a swap between Sainz and Hamilton at their respective teams.
For Sir Lewis, this move seemed to be imperative over the past few seasons. After a second straight winless season for the 7-time F1 Champion, the Mercedes team just hasn't been able to find the top of the podium, resulting in the longest winless drought in his career.
Hamilton's move to Ferrari may be the fresh start that the former champion will need to get back his win, but one of the major questions will be: what does the future of Mercedes look like?
Looking just at the list of potential driver additions, Carlos Sainz would probably be number one for the Teal-and-Black F1 team.
Sainz, who grabbed a win with Ferrari at Singapore last season in the midst of Verstappen's incredible run, has shown he can bring trophies home, but the fact of the matter is, how much of it can he do?
Joining Mercedes seems like a gimme for Sainz, but the team could look to go into a rebuild and work on finding a younger driver to join the team, which could change the outlook of the team from a competitive vantage.
Mercedes has the ball in its court for the direction they want to go, but for Hamilton, the writing on the wall seems to be that Ferrari may give him the best shot to win.
He may not be the same driver he was in his prime, but he has finished on podiums over the course of this winless drought and has been ever so close to winning another race in his illustrious career.
Not only that but there is also so much potential for the Ferrari-Hamilton tandem to do more outside F1, whether that be in the World Endurance Championship with on-track action or even off-track social opportunities.
However, there will always be a wonder if Hamilton had any ties with Andretti going forward.
While this is just a cat out-of-the-bag idea, the chance to have Hamilton going to Andretti could have been in the cards prior to this move.
Coming off the announcement that deemed Andretti to be "not completive," adding a driver of the caliber and cultural prestige could have been the signal to the rest of the field that the team is legit.
There is no denying the growth that Andretti is trying to do in motorsports with the many hands they have in multiple series, but adding someone like Hamilton could have solidified that program and may have been on the table prior to him joining.
The Hamilton chase for eight will be a sight to see coming in 2025 with Ferrari, and the landscape of F1 may have just been altered drastically before the season.