FINAL FLING

Targeting his record eighth title, Lewis Hamilton will ditch his long-time Mercedes team for a Ferrari seat from 2025 onwards.

- Braam Peens

Glory and romance aside, there's much more behind his motivation than the mere hope of a fairy-tale career finish...

A dorning a million boyhood bedroom walls and a matching number of garages of older racing fans across the world, is a poster teasing a rear shot of Gilles Villeneuve at an impossible angle over a trackside curb, flanked by the words of Il Commendatore reads: 'What's behind you doesn't matter.'

It's stirring stuff that crystalises the heroism, enchantment and sheer iconography of wringing a steed crafted by motorsport's most revered team in its zenith echelon. Except that, owing to its legacy, driving for Ferrari inescapably invites conversations - and comparisons - with its glorious gallery of ghosts.

For Lewis Hamilton, whose 2025 arrival at the Scuderia was announced on 1 February, over time and in the wake of several previous overtures, that gravitational pull became irresistible.

The maverick move sets out to redress the final missing entries on the resumés of two of F1's greatest drivers. One, that of Hamilton's childhood hero, Ayrton Senna who dreamt of yet never raced in red which was denied by fate on 1 May 1994. And of Michael Schumacher - whose seven titles Hamilton has matched, though not yet exceeded - after his long-serving Mercedes team was derailed by a combination of misunderstanding 2022's new ground-effect aerodynamics, coupled with the consequences of the engine freeze and budget cap effectively prohibiting in-season correction of developmental missteps.

Only there's more to his thinking than lusting after a faster company car.

MERCEDES' MALEDICTION 

Frustrations with perpetually recalcitrant cars from 2022 onwards, and with the zero prospect of redemption until F1's new ruleset enters play in 2026, provide the most obvious pointers to Hamilton turning his back on a team that powered him to 82 wins and six crowns since 2014.