Lewis Hamilton is unlikely to get behind the wheel of a Ferrari in post-season Abu Dhabi testing with his Formula One debut looking set for the start of next year.
The seven-time world champion is leaving Mercedes after 12 seasons and will switch to the Italian team for 2025, but any hopes that he could familiarise himself with their car before the new season have receded. Mercedes have given no indication the Briton would be released early from his commitments for the post-season tyre test in Abu Dhabi after December’s season finale.
It is understood Hamilton will still have to undertake some end-of-year promotional commitments that include an appearance for Mercedes’s sponsor Petronas on the day of the Abu Dhabi test. Fred Vasseur, the team principal, said Ferrari’s plan was to ease Hamilton into his new surroundings by getting him to drive some of their older race cars. “I’m not sure that he needs tons of hours of acclimatisation,” Vasseur told Autosport. “He is experienced enough to be quick on the first day, or at least very soon. We’ll have one or two TPC [testing of previous cars] days, plus the test in Bahrain, and that will be enough.”
The TPC rules allow teams to run cars “designed and constructed in order to comply with the Technical Regulations of any of the three (3) calendar years falling immediately prior to the calendar year preceding the year of the championship”.
Vasseur added: “For sure we have part of the team already focusing on ‘25, on the test plan, on the communication and so on, with Lewis being part of this. But not on the race team, and it’s not on my mind.”
Meanwhile Greg Maffei, the Liberty Media president and chief executive, will step down from his roles at the end of 2024. The American corporation, which took control of Formula One in 2017, says Maffei will step down following the expiration of his contract at the end of the year. The current chairman, John Malone, will become interim CEO, while Maffei will serve as a senior adviser from 1 January 2025 to “support the management transition”.
