LEWIS HAMILTON’S NEW LIFE AT FERRARI: VEGAN PIZZA, ITALIAN LESSONS AND LIVING IN A MOTORHOME
It was on a ski slope during his annual winter trip to Colorado that Lewis Hamilton first felt the “wave of life and energy” to which he has referred in recent weeks wash over him.
Until then, the fatigue from what Hamilton has described as the “longest season of his career” and the emotion of his final visit to the Mercedes factory in Brackley – Hamilton admits he cried in the car on the way home – had combined to produce a certain amount of anxiety ahead of his impending move to Ferrari.
But on this particular day, Hamilton was in the zone. Ski-shoeing to the top of a lift which would normally mark the endpoint of one of his regular hikes, the seven-time world champion decided to push on. He ended up doing another one-and-a-half hours, slogging away uphill, his heart-rate hovering between 160-170bpm. Hamilton maintains that at 40 years of age he is the fittest he has ever been. There is no reason to doubt him. He looks it.
The transformation physically and mentally in just a few short weeks has in fact been startling. La dolce vita clearly agrees with Hamilton. Since turning up for his first day of work in a double-breasted Ferragamo coat over a vintage pinstripe double-breasted suit and slim black tie, paired with patent leather Christian Louboutin boots, his union with Ferrari has looked like a marriage made in heaven.
Hamilton has been staying on-site at the factory in Maranello during his initial settling-in period, in a motorhome parked just outside the simulator. It makes sense, allowing the Briton to spend as much time as possible at the factory, getting to know as many of the 1,500 staff as he can – he shook all of their hands on his first day and ended up getting ill.
It also means he has been able to invite his engineers over for lunch at his motorhome, something he was never able to do at Brackley, when he would tend to stay nearby in somewhere like Banbury.
Longer term, Hamilton’s plan is to live in Milan rather than Monaco, where he has a home. Hamilton loves the city, one of the world’s fashion capitals, and already has friends there. But more importantly, he wants to embed himself into Italian culture. He has been taking Italian lessons for a while now (“one-to-one rather than duolingo”) and eating as much Italian cuisine as he can. “Oh God. I’ve eaten so many pizzas in the last few weeks,” he joked in an interview last month. “But funnily enough, I’ve lost weight.” It probably helps that his pizzas are cheese-free. Hamilton is vegan and has been a vocal advocate of plant-based living since 2017.
The famous Cavallino restaurant in Maranello should be used to Hamilton’s dietary requirements by now. Since beginning work in late January, he has made a point of going out for dinner every Wednesday night with Ferrari team principal Frédéric Vasseur, deputy team principal Jérôme d’Ambrosio and team-mate Charles Leclerc. He has told friends that these dinner dates have been invaluable in terms of building relationships.
Vasseur was a clearly big factor in Hamilton’s move. It was with the Frenchman’s Mercedes-powered ASM team that Hamilton won Formula 3 back in 2005. But so too the Belgian d’Ambrosio and chassis technical director Loïc Serra, both of whom made the move from Brackley to Maranello not long before him.
As for Leclerc, Hamilton has bonded with his new team-mate by playing chess, both online and in person. The pair were spotted trading pawns on their table at the O2 launch. Hamilton was 3-2 up in games by then.
The overriding impression Hamilton has given over the last few weeks is that he is just excited to get going. He may have started on January 22, but it has been over a year since he agreed to the move. He has had a long time to prepare for this. From getting his Italian going – it currently extends to “asking people how their weekends have been” – to getting his inner circle in place.
That includes bringing his long time physio Angela Cullen, who left Mercedes rather abruptly a few years ago, back as part of the performance team at Project 44, which is overseen by friend and manager Marc Hynes. Cullen was also denied that eighth world title in Abu Dhabi in 2021, and she is up for the challenge of righting that wrong.
New press officer Ella is another signing by Project 44. An Italian who lives in London, Ella has no background in Formula One but will provide a new youthful component to Hamilton’s new entourage, which also includes his father Anthony and stepmother Linda, both of whom are out here in Australia this weekend.
“Looking back, when I was 22, I was not mature,” Hamilton noted in his FIA press conference on Thursday. “I had done the homework as to how to drive the car, but I didn’t have a foundation around me, or a team. My dad and step-mum booked the flights out here. And they are both here this weekend. It has been a long journey with them.
“But at the beginning I didn’t have any help, and it was deep-end everywhere. I drowned many times. Now I am comfortable in my own skin. What a rollercoaster it has been. I am incredibly grateful still to be here, and to have this opportunity. I can’t wait to get going.”
‘I’ve never seen him smile so much’
Paddock observers have all been struck by Hamilton’s confidence and energy, with Martin Brundle describing the move, and the way he has built a team around him, as “very smart” on Hamilton’s part.
“As the old adage goes, a change is as good as a rest and the Ferrari move does seem to be working for Lewis,” Brundle noted this week. “I’ve never seen him smile so much. While we’ve seen in the past the likes of Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen, Michael Schumacher and Niki Lauda return after time out of the sport, Lewis has never had a break from F1 since he started in 2007, but I do think this Ferrari move is the equivalent for him. We’re seeing that just observing him and reading his words. He seems really energised and invigorated by this new opportunity.
“Lewis has been very smart too. Obviously, he knows team boss Fred Vasseur very well from times of old, but he’s had an advance party at Ferrari to integrate as quickly as he can into the team. Angela Cullen has returned, while Marc Hynes has been back in the fold for a year or two now already.”
The proof of the pudding, of course, will be in the eating. Whether Hamilton’s winter of content leads to performance on track only time will tell. He certainly looked competitive pace-wise at last month’s test in Bahrain, even if there remain valid questions over his one-lap pace relative to Leclerc, if only because of the way he was smashed in qualifying by George Russell last year.
Hamilton, though, appears unperturbed. While he would never say so publicly, there is no doubt that he and those close to him feel that his performance dip last season was more than coincidental.
If not in terms of actual sabotage – although that was alleged by one anonymous ‘Mercedes employee’ last season, who sent an email to media claiming Hamilton was being nobbled by Toto Wolff (an email Mercedes promptly forwarded to Northamptonshire police, describing it as an outrageous slur) – then at least indirectly, subconsciously, the team immediately shifted their focus to Russell. Wolff had to appease his shareholders who were not happy about Lewis leaving, so they needed Russell to perform.
We will find out more on Saturday when the first qualifying session of the season takes place. But Hamilton insists he is not feeling the pressure. “I am back at square one,” he concluded on Thursday. “I’ve been in the factory four days a week. I’ve given everything to training to push my mind and my body further than I have before to squeeze more juice out.
“I’m under no illusions as to how difficult it will be. But I don’t feel the pressure. The outside pressure is non-existent for me. The pressure is from within. The pressure I put on myself is 10 times higher than any pressure anyone can put on me.”
That may be. But for now Hamilton is simply projecting an aura of calmness and positivity. He began his race weekend in Australia by releasing a brilliant video on Instagram, in which he had been cleverly edited into the role of the parking attendant in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The one who famously takes $5 from Matthew Broderick’s Ferris Bueller to “take good care” of the Ferrari that belongs to the father of Ferris’ friend, Cameron Frye, and promptly goes off on a joyride.
Hamilton said in his post that the clip took “a lot of cutting edge tech, production and planning to get right”. He added that he needed “the exact car,” although it was unclear from his post if the car used in the clip was a replica like the one originally used in the film or an actual Ferrari 250 GT California.
Either way, it was another sign of Hamilton enjoying himself; flexing his superstar status and creative muscle, much as he did with his recent extraordinary Time magazine cover, on which he was the creative lead. He even got the Hollywood actor Edward Norton to appear in the Ferris Bueller clip with him as his fellow parking attendant.
“This is the energy and excitement I’m bringing to the track this year,” he signed off his post. “ANDIAMO!!” [Let’s go!!] Andiamo, indeed.
2025-03-13T09:13:18Z
