Ferrari successfully lured Lewis Hamilton away from Mercedes to join them in 2025. However, that isn’t enough to take them to the championship win. Karun Chandhok took a look at the Maranello side’s recent signing and why they are nothing short of a coup. The Sky F1 expert lauded team principal Frederic Vasseur for pulling it off and putting his team at an advantage.
On Sky F1 Podcast’s recent episode, Chandhok said, “You’d have to say that Fred Vasseur is doing an amazing job because Loic Sera, very very highly rated in the engineering and aero team up at Mercedes. That’s a bit of a coup for Ferrari.”
“And Jerome [d’Ambrosio] is someone that brings driving experience but also he brings management experience. He worked as a team principal in Formula E, he worked closely with Toto Wolff at Mercedes on various bits and pieces. There’s so much to do at Ferrari as part of this Project Rehabilitation to make them world champions again. I think for Fred to get a breadth of people with experience in the team is a great move,” he added.
Chandhok compared the overhaul at Ferrari to the Michael Schumacher era. He highlighted how signing just Lewis Hamilton won’t bring championships just like signing Schumacher didn’t back in 1996. The way they built the team around Schumacher with the likes of Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne is what made them successful.
They can replicate that with Hamilton at the helm. The likes of Loic Sera and Jerome d’Ambrosio, and the incumbent Ferrari mechanics will benefit from the Briton’s vast experience. Hamilton is not just capable of guiding the development path but also brings a championship-winning pedigree.
Is Adrian Newey the final piece of the puzzle for Ferrari?
Outbound Red Bull CTO Adrian Newey is another key player who can play a massive role in taking Ferrari to the top. With his ongoing dominance and a total of 25 world championships to his name, the 65-year-old would be an asset to any team he goes to.
But is he really available? Newey’s manager, Eddie Jordan, earlier discussed how the Briton might prefer to take a break from F1. The claims earned legitimacy when Newey himself told Martin Brundle about his willingness to stay away for a while before deciding his next destination.
The engineering extraordinaire is free to join any team after the first quarter of 2025. While Ferrari are reportedly the favorites to get him to put pen on paper, it is not a given that he will join them. That is because the likes of Aston Martin stand in the way. Now that Loic Sera has departed, Mercedes might as well be in the hunt for Newey’s signature as well.
