Scuderia Ferrari is one of the most recognized Formula One teams, having a long and healthy history. However, the sport’s most successful team has not won a championship title in the last 16 years, with the most recent win coming in 2008. Although the new season has begun, Ferrari is one of the top contenders for the 2024 title, and Red Bull Racing remains the most formidable opponent. At the moment, beating Red Bull across a season is a major challenge; they may lose one or two races, but taking the title away from Max Verstappen, who is as merciless as ever, will require a massive effort from other teams.
To address the dilemma, Ferrari has signed seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, but the British driver will not join the team until 2025. Ferrari will field Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, with Carlos Sainz leaving the team. It will be interesting to see if the Italian team will choose a No1 driver for the team starting next season, but there is one more season between Leclerc and Sainz, and their season has already begun on a dramatic note, with Sainz finishing ahead of Leclerc despite starting behind him on the grid.
Sainz brilliantly raced past Leclerc twice during the Bahrain Grand Prix, finishing on the podium alongside the Red Bull drivers and ahead of his own teammate. This scenario offers a tough task for the Scuderia, exacerbated by the great expectations and prestige that come with racing for Ferrari.
Especially at Ferrari, you really need a first driver, because you have to deal with more pressure.
There’s a lot of politics going on, which you sometimes don’t know about and which you sometimes don’t understand, legendary F1 driver Alain Prost said in his recent interview. When you’re fighting another team, it makes it much easier for a team if you have a clear number 1. When you don’t have the chance to win the title, maybe you don’t need a first driver. But if you do have that chance and you want to win that title, maybe we’ll find out next year with Lewis and Charles, the former F1 champion added.
That will be very interesting. It will be very difficult for management, but on paper, there will be no first driver, which is good for the sport anyway, Prost concluded. Hamilton’s move sets the stage for one of the most compelling intra-team rivalries in 2025.
