Will Lewis Hamilton ever win an eighth world championship?

Lewis Hamilton sent the motorsport world into a frenzy last week as it emerged that the Formula One legend will join Ferrari for the 2025 season.

The seven-time World Drivers’ Championship winner, who is the joint-most successful driver in Formula One history, has been behind the wheel of a Mercedes since 2013 and won six of his titles with the team.

He helped the team to a record eight successive World Constructors’ Championship titles but now, just a month after Hamilton turned 39, his focus is on cementing his personal legacy as the most successful driver in the history of the sport - providing he cannot overcome odds of 11/1 to end his time at Mercedes with a record-breaking title.

But is Hamilton’s move to Formula One’s most iconic team a hint at the Scuderia’s strength and a boost to the Brit’s chances of a record-breaking eighth World Drivers’ Championship title?

Or is it simply a chance for him to fulfil every racer’s dream of driving for Ferrari?

Silver Arrows pointing in wrong direction

One of the only conceivable reasons for Hamilton ending an 11-year romance with Mercedes-Benz is that he simply does not believe in the direction the team are taking the car.

Red Bull were utterly dominant last season and Hamilton made it clear on numerous occasions that he was unhappy with the state of the car, which has just one Grand Prix win in the last two full seasons.

The Brackley-based team did finally abandon their initial design concept for the new regulations part way through last season, but if Hamilton truly believed they were capable of delivering a car to rival Red Bull it is hard to believe he would leave the team.

Whether that means Ferrari have a roadmap Hamilton believes in, or whether he just wants to fulfil a childhood ambition of driving for the Scuderia remains to be seen, but what is clear is that he does not think Toto Wolff and company have a winning car in the pipeline and that moving on is his best chance of getting back to the pinnacle of the sport.

Will Hamilton be top dog at Ferrari?

Initial reports suggested that future Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc welcomed the news that Hamilton would join the Tifosi ranks, but that may not be entirely true, with some following reports claiming that Leclerc and his team are ‘shocked and disappointed by Ferrari’s decision’.

Any dismay from Leclerc’s side will almost certainly be down to the fact that the Monegasque driver will no longer be the de facto number one driver at the Prancing Horse, as it seems incredibly unlikely that Hamilton would accept a contract at Ferrari without seeking assurances regarding his position within the team.

Hamilton, who is seeking to become the first British champion for Ferrari since John Surtees in 1964, knows his time in the sport is drawing to a close and will not want his chances of an eighth World Drivers’ Championship hampered by him being the second driver.

He may only get one season before Ferrari are forced to appease their poster boy, but one season may be all Hamilton needs.