Lewis Hamilton has been the story of the off-season, thanks to his hyped Ferrari move which has the entire F1 world on the edge of its seat. How the Briton will perform remains a mystery, but one thing seems certain — he will have to adapt to a whole new environment.
Hamilton has only worked with F1 teams based out of the UK in the past — McLaren and Mercedes — and with that being his home country, he never had to face the ‘culture shock’ element. However, with Ferrari operating out of Maranello, Hamilton will have to immerse himself in Italian culture. Maybe even start living there and speak Italian.
While he is making efforts for the same, Hamilton is not just any other driver. He’s arguably F1’s best ever and statistically above all others. So, a part of the community — Hamilton loyalists — in particular feel that Ferrari should be the one changing to accommodate their star signing.
Guenther Steiner, however, thinks that won’t happen. He also suggested that Hamilton has to be wary of the Charles Leclerc threat.
“I think you will have to adjust,” he said to Fox Australia. “Because Ferrari won’t adjust to you. Ferrari had a lot of big drivers and the team culture never changed…”
Steiner further insisted that he trusts Hamilton is smart enough to know that he will have to work hard at Ferrari, a team that Leclerc has already made his own over the years. “Charles Leclerc speaks fluent Italian. He has been there a long time… So he [Hamilton] needs to put some work in.”
| FERRARI ADJUSTS BASED ON HAMILTON’S REQUESTS
Hamilton has already secured the pedal adjustments he requested and is using Leclerc’s steering as a foundation for refining his future preferences.
@Auto_Racer_it / @GiulyDuchessa pic.twitter.com/fDhaMSW2yQ
— La Gazzetta Ferrari (@GazzettaFerrari) January 26, 2025
This wasn’t the first reminder to Hamilton that he will need to adapt to Ferrari’s culture to succeed, but as Steiner pointed out, the seven-time champion is likely well aware of that.
That said, there has also been a lot of discourse over how both parties will have to keep their learning channels open from both ways and enhance their work dynamic, as being rigid to one specific way may not work.
Former Aston Martin team principal, Otmar Szafnauer has been vocal about this, stating that Hamilton is bigger than Ferrari in this context, so he should have the veto.
“Give Lewis what he wants”: Szafnauer
Anything short of a title victory for Ferrari or Hamilton will be considered a failure this season. But for that to happen, Szafnauer feels that team principal Frederic Vasseur will have to change the way the team operates, so that Hamilton feels comfortable.
“Fred’s job is to get the organization to change in order to give Lewis what he wants and areas where Lewis brings something with him that was better in his past. So, you gotta learn from Lewis,” he said last month.
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The correct approach is impossible to predict at the moment, but Szafnauer was likely banking on Hamilton’s title-winning experience. Ferrari last won a title in 2008, while Hamilton has won seven since — so he knows what it takes to bring success to a team in recent times.
In reality, both sides will likely make efforts to adapt to each other. That would be the quickest way for Hamilton to settle in and the ideal way for Ferrari’s engineers to get accustomed to working with him.
