What Lewis Hamilton told Frederic Vasseur about racing for Ferrari back in 2004

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Lewis Hamilton will reunite with Frederic Vasseur when he joins Ferrari in 2025. Hamilton’s pre-existing relationship with Vasseur may well have been key in facilitating the sensational move.

Vasseur founded the ASM team in 1996 before setting up ART in 2004. Hamilton won the European F3 series with ASM in 2005, and then the GP2 title with ART a year later.

It was clear at that point that he was a special talent. Hamilton’s GP2 season is statistically the best of all the graduates on the current grid.

He’d been part of the McLaren-Mercedes driver programme since 1997, and they offered him an F1 seat on the back of his GP2 triumph. Vasseur, meanwhile, would continue to work in the junior categories until he joined Renault as team principal in 2016.

His stint with his native team was brief as he joined Sauber a year later, overseeing their transition to Alfa Romeo. Ferrari offered him the team boss role at the end of the 2022 season.

Last year, the Scuderia were the only team other than Red Bull to win a race. This season, Vasseur has led them to three more victories, and they can realistically aim to beat Christian Horner’s squad to second place in the constructors’.

Lewis Hamilton ‘always’ had joining Ferrari in mind, says Fred Vasseur

Speaking at an event for Gazzetta dello Sport, Vasseur recalled the beginning of his relationship with Hamilton in the mid-noughties. While he was already linked to Mercedes through McLaren, he dreamed of Ferrari from the outset.

As he ascended the ranks, Michael Schumacher was winning five straight titles with the Italian giants (2000-04). No driver has repeated that run before or since.

Hamilton has surpassed Schumacher for total race victories (105 vs 91) after an era-defining move to Mercedes in 2013. But now he wants to overtake him for total championships, and end Ferrari’s long drought in the process.

“In 2004, we were actually working together with him,” Vasseur said. “He started with Mercedes, [but] he had always had in mind that sooner or later, he could get to Ferrari. So we started the debate a long time ago, but we always had it in mind.”

Guenther Steiner tells Charles Leclerc what he must learn from Lewis Hamilton next year

Hamilton is facing arguably the fastest teammate of his career in Charles Leclerc. He’s previously gone up against the likes of Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button and Nico Rosberg.

Rosberg is the only driver on the list with more pole positions than Leclerc (30 vs 26). But the German drove a dominant car between 2014 and 2016, a luxury Leclerc has never enjoyed.

Still, Guenther Steiner says Leclerc must learn from Hamilton. In particular, he should look at how the seven-time champion ‘conducts himself’ outside the car.

Leclerc has been with the team since 2016, first in the academy and then in the F1 squad from 2019. Hamilton won’t test for Ferrari until winter 2025 (rather than representing them in the post-season Abu Dhabi test), giving him precious little time to adapt before the first race in Australia.