Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
Lewis Hamilton has greeted a crowd of waiting Italian fans as he drove a Ferrari Formula 1 car for the first time since joining the team for the 2025 season – and thousands of kilometres away, even Jannik Sinner was enthusing about the seven-time world champ’s arrival.
Hamilton was behind the wheel of a 2023-specification Ferrari SF-23 bearing his racing number, 44, at the team’s Fiorano test track near Maranello on Wednesday, and wore a new helmet design in yellow with a prominent Prancing Horse logo.
The 40-year-old British driver set out for his first lap at 9.16am local time in light fog and twice waved to a crowd of around 1000 spectators, who had gathered on a nearby bridge despite the cold and wet weather.
Part-way through the day, Hamilton headed over to fans who had waited for hours in the wet conditions since early morning for a glimpse of him behind the wheel.
Wearing a jacket in Ferrari red, he waved, gave a thumbs-up gesture and put a hand to his heart.
There was excitement from the country’s biggest sports star, too.
After reaching the semi-finals at the Australian Open, world No.1 Sinner was asked by an Italian reporter if he had seen anything on social media about Hamilton’s Ferrari debut.
“It’s still pretty strange to see him in red,” Sinner said, “but it’ll be a great season!”
Hamilton has shaken up F1 with his move to Ferrari after 12 years with Mercedes, where he won six of his seven world titles. He has said he’s fulfilling a childhood dream.
“I’ve been lucky enough to have achieved things in my career I never thought possible, but part of me has always held on to that dream of racing in red. I couldn’t be happier to realise that dream today,” he said on Monday after arriving at Ferrari’s Maranello HQ for his first day at work with the new team.
F1 tightly restricts teams from testing current-specification cars but the rules are more loose for older cars like the SF-23 that Hamilton drove on Wednesday.
The F1 regulations for 2025 allow Hamilton to drive up to 1000 kilometers (621 miles) over four days in older F1 cars under the “testing of previous cars” rule. The SF-23 is the most recent Ferrari that’s eligible.
Pre-season testing for the new season’s cars is from February 26 through 28 in Bahrain before the season opens on 16 March at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.
