Ex-Ferrari engineer gives Hamilton instructions: 'Then he'll walk on water'

Before the 2024 season even started, Ferrari announced they had signed Hamilton for the 2025 Formula 1 season. This highly anticipated move is starting to become a reality. Hamilton has just six race weekends left with Mercedes. He has always driven a Mercedes engine in Formula 1 and has been with the works Mercedes team since the 2013 season. The Brit has admitted he is getting emotional about his final races with the German team.

Hamilton will, largely, move to Mercedes alone. He knows team boss Fred Vasseur well from his junior days. Loic Serra and Jérôme d'Ambrosio will join Hamilton on the same path from Mercedes to Ferrari in broader roles, but close associates such as his race engineer Peter Bonnington will remain at Mercedes. Smedley, who famously worked as a race engineer with Felipe Massa at Ferrari, sees this as a positive.

"When a seven-times world champion chooses your team to come and work at your team. I don't think he needs to bring an entourage with him. And I always spoke about this, this publicly, both for Lewis himself and for people like Bono [Peter Bonnington]. I think that it's quite a dangerous game to play to follow the driver around because if the driver falls out of favour or the driver decides that after one year this is not for him, he can't take the entourage with him. So I think that Lewis has done the right thing," Smedley said on the Formula for Success podcast.

"He'd obviously have Team LH around him, his management and trainers and people like that. But I think trying to take engineers would have been a bit of a misstep. So I think that the team will embrace him. If you go there with a bit of a reputation, like what Lewis has got for being able to deliver, the team will get around him," he added.

How can Hamilton maximise his time at Ferrari?

Smedley understands the ins and outs of working for Ferrari. It's a very unique constructor, who are treated like the national team of Italy. "Then Lewis has got to do his part as well. Lewis has definitely got to play his part in endearing himself and embracing the culture of the team and not being on the periphery of that. And if he can do that, they will love him. Honestly, he will walk on water," Smedley continued.

"They'll [Ferrari] just be able to raise their game by another 1%, 2%, because they'll feel that confidence. This is a seven-time world champion coming into your team, having chosen your team over effectively a team he's been at for, let's call it all of his life, if you take the engine part of it, suddenly he's walking away from all of that and all of that legacy, and he's choosing you guys. So that gives you a massive boost of confidence. If everybody works that half/one percent harder or smarter, then great things can happen," he concluded.

In the meantime, though, Hamilton will try to improve his position in the 2024 Formula 1 World Championship with Mercedes. Toto Wolff's team will bring an update to the United States Grand Prix weekend when Formula 1 returns towards the end of October.