In January, we reported on why Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari deal goes means past Method 1, and you’ll learn that report right here. Two months later, it seems that we’d have simply witnessed how that would materialize within the type of him placing his design efforts into a brand new ‘F44’ supercar, based mostly on the legendary F40 from the mid-Eighties…
Motorsport.com quotes Hamilton, who races with the quantity 44 in F1, as saying this in Australia: “One of many issues I actually wish to do is I wish to design a Ferrari. I wish to do an F44. Baseline of an F40, with the precise stick shift. That’s what I’m gonna work on for the following few years.”
The Ferrari F40 was the final street automotive accepted by Enzo Ferrari, earlier than his loss of life in 1988, and it was based mostly on Method 1 expertise of the time. Though over 1,300 examples have been produced, its repute as one of many best analogue supercars of all time has led to costs rocketing to between $1.5-3 million, and fellow F1 driver and present world championship chief Lando Norris owns one.
It’s not clear precisely when Hamilton stated this, doubtlessly at a public occasion quite than a press convention, as Melbourne hosted the Australian Grand Prix earlier this month. But it surely’s price declaring that on his first official day at Ferrari, the seven-times world champion posed subsequent to the V8-powered F40 exterior Enzo Ferrari’s workplace constructing at its Fiorano check observe. Was this a clue to what’s coming subsequent?
Hamilton has a robust Ferrari-owning historical past, shopping for a 599 GTO in 2010, earlier than changing it with a 599 SA Aperta. His assortment consists of each a LaFerrari, during which he was famously noticed driving round Beverley Hills with Justin Bieber, and an unbelievable LaFerrari Aperta.
Hamilton had been linked with being concerned in a particular version of the AMG One when he was on the Mercedes F1 staff, however nothing got here to go. Final yr, High Gear Journal instructed that Ferrari was contemplating one other addition to its ultra-exclusive “Icona” sequence, alongside the Monza SP1/SP2 and Daytona SP3, and that the LaFerrari could be reimagined someway. However maybe that is the undertaking it may subsequent take into account…
Not solely does Hamilton, who gained the dash on the Chinese language Grand Prix final weekend, carry his undoubted driving expertise to Maranello, however he brings an enormous profile and following. Knighted by the British royal household, his world attraction – comparable with fellow gigastars Tiger Woods and LeBron James – has appealed to a far broader viewers than F1 followers, and he’s additionally develop into a distinguished activist for elevated range and social justice.
His pursuits in trend and music have additionally elevated his affect exterior of the cockpit, and his philanthropism and charity work means Ferrari just isn’t solely getting one of many best F1 drivers of all time however a real icon with mass attraction.
As Lamborghini goes from energy to energy, within the American market specifically, maybe Ferrari may benefit from its F1 legend by placing his identify to its subsequent iconic supercar to place its Italian rival within the shade.
Supply: Motorsport.com
