LEWIS FEVER

HAMILTON, TODAY IS THE DAY HE WILL DRIVE THE FERRARI. TIFOSI ALREADY IN DELIRIUM

Originally Published in: Gazzetta dello Sport

Originally Published on: Jan 22nd 2025

Originally Written by: Mario Salvini

The champion tested the simulator yesterday. He must erase the Mercedes data from his memory. Formula 1 has become a global phenomenon that envelops and fascinates even those who, until a few years ago, had never been interested in racing. It is lights, glamour, and an international jet set. But its soul is still there, it’s always the same as before. Just go, when it really matters, to the overpass of the state road, where the municipality of Fiorano ends, a few meters from the entrance to Maranello. From there you can see the Scuderia Ferrari circuit, even if the gates are closed. And it is there that the red crowd gathers on memorable days like these.

It was like that in the days of Niki Lauda and Gilles Villeneuve, and it is so now in the early days of Lewis Hamilton as a Ferrari driver.

He himself has said he is sure these days will be unforgettable for him. And millions of Tifosi, with a capital T as they are called abroad, hope they will be just as memorable for them. An indelible memory of the beginning of a new golden age. For two days now, the bike path on that overpass has been congested. Yesterday it was all day, with peaks of three to four hundred people lingering, watching the empty track in anticipation. They came from all over Italy, some from abroad. Many stayed from 9 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon without moving, just in case Lewis came out, basking in his first day at the wheel of the red one. Only to then give in, just when a timid sun had peeked over the foothills of Emilia, to postpone everything until the next day.

RED PEOPLE At this point, the designated day to see Hamilton on track will very likely be today, weather permitting. So here we go again up there. There will be no more "Mai Strachi de Ferrari," the Veronese club that had set up a sort of camp yesterday with stoves and provisions, nor David and Isaia, who returned to Udine after ordering lunch from a delivery service just to avoid leaving their stretch of guardrail. Neither Andrea nor Stella, mother and daughter from Budapest, who had booked a visit to the Ferrari Museum and couldn’t believe they had managed to arrive at the possible day of days. But Antonio, from Naples, has extended his stay at the hotel: Cristopher, a well-equipped aspiring photographer from Rome, will have managed in some way; Veronica from Castellarano (Reggio Emilia) will have taken another day off. And with them, many others, many more than yesterday, one imagines. Willing to endure the cold, perhaps the rain, just to be there.

PROGRAM Meanwhile, Lewis's program continued yesterday with team introductions and began to get acquainted with the 2025 Ferrari. It doesn't have a name yet, and it is not completed in terms of chassis, engine, and suspensions, but in the parallel reality of the simulator, it already exists. Today they go on the track. He should be the first. Thus, the moment to be remembered will presumably be in the morning when the threat of rain is concrete. Then it should be Charles Leclerc's turn in the afternoon. But these are just rumours. They will alternate on the F1-75 and the SF23, the cars from 2022 and 2023, the maximum limit allowed by the regulations. Old single-seaters, but both already of the current ground effect generation. Good for Hamilton's first apprenticeship. He will have quite a bit of work to do. There are settings to fine-tune, adjustments useful also in view of the 2025 car. And then he needs to start building a rapport with Riccardo Adami, his track engineer, and with all the other technicians. They need to understand some of his characteristics and preferences in terms of driving style and setups. For this reason, it can be assumed that he might also test radically different setups, to refine his sensitivity and provide the engineers with feedback on how he adapts to changes. In the simulator, both with the model of the new single-seater and with that of the SF-24, it is also about erasing a sort of sedimented memory from 12 years of the model in use at Mercedes.

In short, as always, there will be a need to reconcile the emotions of an epoch-making day, its romanticism, its solemnity, with practical, technical, infinitely complex issues. It is the eternal allure of Formula 1. For which it is worth spending hours perched on an overpass. Waiting to see history pass by.

[Translation proof reading by @F1REAKS / X]