Hamilton “slowly bonding” with new Ferrari car

Lewis Hamilton reckons he is “slowly bonding” with his Ferrari after notching up a total of 115 laps in his new challenger for 2025.

Hamilton switched to the Italian team in the winter and had made no secret of the struggles he had with his Mercedes from last season.

The seven-time F1 world champion was taking part in pre-season testing in Bahrain where he says he is getting to grips with the SF-25.

He said: “It’s a bit early to say but I’m really enjoying the car. We’re slowly bonding.

“Yesterday was a so-so day. It was OK. But yesterday we got through all of our run plan.

“We’re testing a bunch of things. So I’m not doing set-up changes or directing where I want the car to go. We’re just going through the motions.

“Today was a bit more of getting to explore a bit of my interaction with my engineer. So far I really enjoy driving this car.”

Hamilton spent 12 seasons with Mercedes and says it is taking him time to adjust to driving a Ferrari F1 car for the first time in his career and, as a result, is working through different set-up options.

He added: “At the moment, there’s still room to explore more, and I’m just, bit by bit, eking out a little bit more each time.

“All the settings are so different. So even just brake bias and all those sorts of things, it’s much different to what I had in the previous place.

“It’s not necessarily unlearning what I did before, but kind of relearning this new way of working and where the car likes to be driven.

“It likes to be driven differently. And that’s a really fun journey learning that. But at the moment, it feels that we definitely feel the car underneath me. I feel that the car is responding to my inputs.

“Today was a positive day, and making those incremental steps with the set-up. There’s still more work to do.”

Hamilton looks reinvigorated and buoyed by his switch, saying his arrival at Ferrari could not have gone any better.

He was watched in Bahrain by Ferrari chairman, John Elkann, who made a rare appearance at testing.

Frederic Vasseur, Ferrari, John Elkann, Ferrari Chairman and CEO

Photo by: Clive Rose / Motorsport Images

Hamilton said: “How you start often is very important. This past month couldn’t have gone any different, and it couldn’t have gone any better.

“The days that we’ve had, just every day, has been significant and really about just building foundations and whilst we have to cram a lot in a small space of time, we haven’t rushed it.

“We still have taken the time but we have just been working flat out in the days, long, long, long days, but that’s what we’re here for, right?

“I really do think it will pay dividends moving forwards, the work that has gone on, the focus, the communication, the changes that we’ve made, but there will be more also over the six-to-eight months.

“This is going to be continuously evolving, but it felt seamless. It’s felt easy in a sense of gelling with the team.

“We have not had to force it. It’s done it in its own time, and I feel at home.”