Lewis Hamilton: Warmly Karted into Ferrari Shoes
It remains to be seen, but could the tifosi donning their iconic prancing horse insignia witness a new champion to stretch Ferrari’s record constructor’s lead at the Australian Grand Prix?
“The most important victory is the one which has to arrive”, said Enzo Ferrari, universally known as “Mr Ferrari”, the founder of the Scuderia Ferrari motor racing team. Enzo was born on February 20th, 1898, in Modena, and in 1908 his father, Alfredo, took him to the Circuit di Bologna. At the tender age of ten, this high-octane atmosphere would immediately ignite a switch within him to forge an impactful journey of his own in the realms of motorsport.
Last month, on January 20th, Sir Lewis Hamilton stood in front of Mr Ferrari's house. Painted white and adorned with Rosso Corsa "Racing Red" coloured window shutters and door, Hamilton would pose in a double-breasted jacket and a dark navy overcoat draped over his shoulders, with hands crossed in front of him and the Ferrari F40 car horizontally positioned beside him.
Deliberately set back from the F40 at Pista di Fiorano, the private racing track situated on the outskirts of Maranello, the factory and headquarters citadel of the Prancing Horses, were those seven Rosso Corsa-hued French windows, symbolising his seven world championship titles. In homage to Mr. Ferrari’s aforementioned quote, the monument's red front door was pictured slightly ajar to inspire an eighth, and world record, championship, surpassing the legendary Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher, who, incidentally, was the last driver to receive the house's keys. This symbolic gesture underscores the significance of Hamilton's entry into the Ferrari family.
Luca Cordera di Montezemolo, the multi-hyphenate, especially in the sphere of automotive excellence, was the mastermind who lured Schumacher to Ferrari from Benetton in 1996. He is a gentleman who opted to forgo his marquis title and dressed with the utmost restraint in the best Neapolitan-cut bespoke tailoring, usually from the family fiefdom, Rubinacci. He commented on his once boss, Mr. Ferrari, that he detested vacations — at most he would allow himself half a day in Viserba, on the Adriatic, before returning home. The personal anecdotes Montezemolo shared about Mr. Ferrari are just a small part of his meticulous and brilliant governance of the world's foremost Formula One team.
Ferrari’s coup in attracting Hamilton — a record winner of 105 Grands Prix — was in fact, together with Fred Vasseur, his former boss during his successful GP2 campaign and now Principal of the Scuderia Ferrari, devised and orchestrated by the enigmatic Ferrari president John Elkann, whose maternal grandfather was the head of Fiat S.p.A., Gianni Agnelli, “Giovanni” (as he was christened), “L’Avvocato” (his nickname, meaning The Lawyer), “King of Italy" (as regarded by JFK), “Italy’s uncrowned King,” and “the Rake of the Riviera.” And the swan-necked beauty, Marella, was his grandmother.
Ironically, when Mr. Ferrari, as a young man, left the army and turned to Fiat for work, he was rejected. The fact that Fiat increased their ownership of Ferrari in 1988 to 90%, with Enzo’s only living son, Piero, keeping the remaining 10%, is a shining example of destiny with unremitting self-belief, passion, and perseverance. Elkann, the chosen heir of the storied Agnelli empire, and thus the largest single shareholder of Ferrari through Exor N.V., the listed holding company of the Italian Agnelli family, is protecting the family dynasty for years to come, which is an unquantifiable challenge and commitment.
Secretive, low-key and modest, since he attended the unveiling of the F310 car at the 1996 Formula One campaign, which tied in with the arrival of Schumacher, it is thought his next major public involvement with Ferrari was the monumental introduction of Hamilton as a Ferrari driver. So, given that Elkann has largely remained in the background at Ferrari, his appearance at Pista di Fiorano on January 20th is a significant indication of the gravity that this signing entails.
“The way I drive, the way I handle a car, is an expression of my inner feelings”, said Hamilton. It was a groove that he and onlookers detected well before he took to the wheel. At the age of seven, he was racing remote-controlled cars and winning club championships against adults. And, still in adolescence, at an award ceremony in 1995 he walked up to McLaren team boss Ron Dennis, and asked for his autograph, saying, “Hi, I’m Lewis Hamilton. I won the British championship and one day I want to be racing your cars.” Dennis would write in his autograph book, “phone me in nine years, we’ll sort something out”. He didn’t have to wait that long though — in 1998 Dennis signed Hamilton to the McLaren and Mercedes-Benz Young Driver Support Programme and, remarkably for someone only thirteen, incorporated in the contract was a clause to sign him on to the McLaren F1 team.
However, before becoming the youngest person to sign an F1 contract, there was a poignant moment for Hamilton, Schumacher, Ferrari, and even Mercedes, given that Schumacher came out of retirement to drive the Silver Arrow from 2010 to 2012. On October 14th, 2001, Schumacher won the final Grand Prix of the year at Suzuka, Japan, to formalise his second world drivers’ championship for Ferrari. However, instead of indulging in well-deserved celebrations with the glitterati, Schumacher jetted back home to compete in the World Karting Championship final that was being held at his father Rolf’s circuit in Kerpen. It was there that he first raced against Hamilton, then sixteen years old, and post-race Schumacher would comment about him, “He’s a quality driver, very strong, and only sixteen. If he keeps this up, I’m sure he will reach F1. It’s something special to see a kid of his age out on the circuit. He’s clearly got the right racing mentality.”
As a rookie in the 2007 F1 championship, Hamilton was not going to play second fiddle to his McLaren teammate, the two-time victor of the World Drivers’ Championship, Fernando Alonso. They finished tied for 2nd at the end of the season; however, in the next campaign, aged twenty-three, Hamilton took the title. In 2013, he signed for Mercedes with his old karting teammate Nico Rosberg, ending his 15-year association with McLaren. And the following year, Hamilton stood on top of the champion’s podium again.
Former F1 driver Johnny Herbert shared his verdict on Hamilton’s move to Ferrari and compared him with Schumacher in being able to translate the ‘human element’ of what a driver needs from a car. Hamilton once imparted how important the human element was at the inauguration of the Formula One World Championship of Drivers in 1950, which for Ferrari would be a decade of exceptional success and, as for other teams, a period of enormous tragedy — thus an era known as both the golden age and killer years of F1.
If there was a driver that demonstrated in all his skill, style and personality to chime with the raw ingredients of the decade, it would be Alberto Ascari — but with Juan Manuel Fangio not far behind. In the 1920s, not only was the Alfa Romeo team run by Scuderia Ferrari, but Ascari’s father, Antonio, was the flamboyant Italian star; however, when he was only seven years old, Alberto’s father was killed during the French Grand Prix at Montlhéry. Later, Mario Andretti, Italian-born US driver of the year in three different decades (1967, 1978, and 1984), and victor of the first Grand Prix of 1971 at Kyalami, South Africa in a Ferrari, said that he figured he had been put on this earth to drive cars, and one could definitely also attribute this sentiment to Ascari.
Ascari’s nascent legacy began in 1940, at the Mille Miglia, the infamous open-road motorsport endurance race, which ceased in 1957 because of irrepressible danger. The race saw the debut of the first Enzo Ferrari-owned marque, ACC (Auto Avio Costruzioni), with Ascari demonstrating an adept touch in the two-seater Tipo 815. The engine dropped a valve, which scuppered his victory. Despite the influence of Benito Mussolini and his mother impeding his progression in the ensuing years, it was while racing for Maserati in 1948 that Mr Ferrari decided it was no good having Ascari as an opponent, signing him to the Ferrari Scuderia from 1949.
If the Grand Prix landscape was tremendously changed by the 1951 Ferrari 375 car, in which the Argentine José Froilán González — a close friend of Ascari — took the year’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone, England, Ferrari’s first win in Formula One, then equally revolutionary was the headwear the drivers would sport. In 1952 it became mandatory to wear a helmet, usually a cork version, or if you’re the polymath motorsport extraordinaire, Piero Taruffi, a customised version - he was amongst the first to adopt a version adapted to his own taste. He had installed 8 holes for better airflow, metal hooks on both sides for goggles straps and a fantastic snap-on black visor to avoid direct rays of light.
On the subject of style, flair, Ferrari, tragedy and multifaceted one-off personalities, when Taruffi, driving a Ferrari 315 S, won the 1957 Mille Miglia, it would be the final demise of arguably motorsport’s most storied event, which ultimately fell to a Spanish noble-conquistador by the name of Alfonso de Portago, whose short life touched every round of risk. Owing to his uncontrollable desire for speed, de Portago was a jockey, bobsledder, flier, polo player, jai-alai expert and racing driver. With an insatiable appetite for women, the final tales leading up to his death that day couldn’t really be more fitting for the unparalleled thrill-seeker man he was, but all within the environs of panache.
On May 12th, which incidentally was a month after the Mexican actress Linda Christian divorced Tyrone Power, during the Mille Miglia 1957 rendition, on a brief stop in his Ferrari 335 S, Christian, in a polka dot dress and headscarf leaned in for a short smooch kiss with de Portago, who was sporting symbolic 1950’s racing gear of the white helmet, goggles and leather jacket. If one is a gentleman driver and would like to embrace and feel the authentic oxygen of the air in an open-top car, then turn to Connolly; at their magnificent shop at No. 4 Clifford Street, London you’ll marvel at their classic driving apparel and accoutrements. On the Ferrari theme, the red leather helmet and the red CB tinted driving googles are delectable items. However, back to May 12th — his co-driver, Edmund Nelson, and nine spectators were also sadly killed; thus, Portago’s role in the final Mille Miglia is often described as “The Kiss of Death”.
De Portago, like so many drivers in the ‘50s, who didn’t wake up worrying about the ruefully completely inadequate safety measures. This includes Ascari, who won two back-to-back World Drivers’ Championships — a record for Ferrari that was only broken by Schumacher in 2001.
Now it’s a fundamentally different era — even to that of Schumacher’s dominance — and so the Formula One Louis Vuitton Australian Grand Prix on the weekend of 14-16 March, the first of the 2025 calendar, is going to be a refreshing yet nostalgic meeting, one that could trigger a formidable partnership between Hamilton and Ferrari that could transcend the annals of Formula One forever.
Featured image: Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton during the F1 75 Live launch event at The O2, London, February 18, 2025, Getty Images.
