While other Formula 1 drivers moving teams in 2025 get a headstart on their preparations in Tuesday’s post-season test, Lewis Hamilton will be far away from Abu Dhabi.
Hamilton’s blockbuster switch from Mercedes to Ferrari is a complicated one that has come at a price. He is embarking on a farewell tour of the team and partners he has been with for 12 seasons: Brackley and Brixworth in the UK, Stuttgart in Germany, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.
That leaves him the only driver switching teams who is not driving in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday. Hamilton’s Ferrari predecessor Carlos Sainz is there with Williams, Haas agreed that Nico Hulkenberg could join up with Sauber, and even Alpine let Esteban Ocon get his first Haas run eventually – although Ocon had to vacate his race seat for the season finale to make it happen.
There was no such opportunity for Hamilton and Ferrari. And although that was more to Ferrari’s disappointment than Hamilton’s, as he admitted to not being hugely excited by the prospect of driving in red for the first time in Abu Dhabi of all places, the seven-time F1 world champion has acknowledged it is a setback in his preparations.
“I know Fred wanted it to happen,” Hamilton said recently when asked by The Race if not running at the test will leave him missing out ahead of his Ferrari move.
“For me I was in two minds. Driving the red car for the first time in Abu Dhabi does not excite me. In the perfect world you'd get to drive it and not be seen. And do the first roll out next year.
“When I did raise it with Toto [Wolff, Mercedes team boss] they had all these plans, that I've got to go and see some of the sponsors and say their farewells.
“I don't think it was ever going to be allowed even if I'd asked for it. But I'm contracted with the team until December 31, and that's totally fine.
“It doesn't bother me because I wasn't going to do the test, I told Fred that's not what I want to do.
“Am I missing out on something? For sure. It definitely delays the process and makes the start of the year harder but we'll do our best to recover from it.”
The end-of-season test is hardly the be all and end all. But for those who participate it helps shortcut the process next year.
Not doing the test means Hamilton has a pretty long list of stuff he can’t tick off in advance: the first seat fit, getting familiar with a new steering wheel layout, working with a new engineering team for the first time, and of course feeling what a Ferrari handles like on-track and offering the team essentially a back-to-back comparison with the Mercedes he just raced at the weekend.
This would all make January smoother. He and Ferrari would hit the ground running on his first day at Maranello refining things like seat comfort or steering wheel grip, and he would have a relevant real-world reference for the simulator, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the car.
Hamilton’s first run in a Ferrari F1 car will instead come next year. He will not wait until pre-season testing, though, as Ferrari has a prolific programme with older cars.
It is likely Hamilton will drive a current-era Ferrari at Fiorano to start bedding himself into the team, but it will not be totally up to date.
Using the 2023 car (pictured above) in such tests will be permitted from January in 2025, and it would be logical for Ferrari to do that.
The 2022 car might be more convenient seeing as it has an existing programme built up around it, so engines and spares should all be available - but Ferrari’s had plenty of time to plan a 2023 car run in advance, so there’s no obvious reason why it can’t be prepared. And the more recent the car the more relevant it’ll be.
There are other ways to get in a Ferrari before pre-season testing proper. The 2025 car could be used in a promotional event, more commonly referred to as filming days, and almost certainly will be given Ferrari always does a shakedown in advance of the first test.
This will be valuable, more so for Hamilton than in a normal situation, but they are capped at 200km and he may need to share that day with Charles Leclerc.
So even though old-car runs are usually aimed at helping young drivers, and Hamilton’s about as far from a rookie as you can be, it makes a lot of sense for Ferrari to make that the mechanism for Hamilton’s debut - much as it would be better if it could happen after Abu Dhabi like with every other driver.
The other downside to Hamilton's Abu Dhabi absence is that F1 has missed out on a fun postscript to a great season.
The ‘new era’ feeling that comes with a raft of new faces in new places at the post-season test would obviously have been amplified much more if Hamilton had been behind the wheel of a Ferrari.
His switch is the biggest move of all the driver line-up changes for 2025, the one that kicked off a frenetic driver market this year, and is one of the biggest F1 stories in recent history.
The first time that driver and that team work together will be a real ‘wow, this is really happening’ moment, and a big story.
This delay just adds to the anticipation for their early days in January, which will carry even more weight for Hamilton himself.