Sebastian Vettel believes a change of culture is “the biggest shift” facing Lewis Hamilton as he prepares for his Ferrari debut at this weekend’s Australian GP.
Hamilton is set to make his first start for Ferrari at this weekend’s F1 2025 curtain raiser in Melbourne following his blockbuster move from Mercedes over the winter.
The seven-time World Champion’s switch to Ferrari marks only the second team move of his illustrious career, with his only previous transfer occurring in 2013 when he swapped McLaren for Mercedes.
Hamilton’s Ferrari debut comes a decade after Vettel made the move to Ferrari from Red Bull after he claimed four consecutive World Championships with the Milton Keynes outfit between 2010 and 2013.
Vettel required just two races to become a winner in Ferrari red, memorably beating Hamilton’s Mercedes to victory at the 2015 Malaysian Grand Prix.
The German claimed a total of 14 wins in five full seasons at Ferrari between 2015 and 2020 but fell short of adding a fifth title to his tally, losing out to Hamilton in closely fought battles in 2017 and 2018.
Speaking to Australian outlet Wide World of Sports, Vettel aired his belief that adapting to a different way of working is the greatest challenge facing Hamilton at Ferrari.
He said: “It’s big. Anybody who changes the team, it’s a big move.
“New people you work with is probably the biggest one. It’s a different culture.
“Obviously most of the teams are English, only two are Italian. That’s probably the biggest shift.
“I grew up watching Michael (Schumacher). He was my hero and he was most of the time in red, so to me it felt different because of that.
“I’m not sure Lewis had the same dream, but I think it’s special for anyone who gets the chance to step into the red car.”
Vettel’s comments come after he returned to racing at last weekend’s Race of Champions exhibition event in Sydney, where he paid a touching tribute to Schumacher alongside the seven-time World Champion’s son, the former Haas F1 driver Mick Schumacher.
It is unclear if Vettel, who retired at the end of the 2022 season after a short stint with Aston Martin, will make the trip to Melbourne to attend the opening race of the F1 2025 season this weekend.
Vettel’s former race engineer Riccardo Adami will work with Hamilton across his first season with Ferrari, having previously acted as the voice in Carlos Sainz’s era between 2021 and 2024.
It emerged last year that Hamilton had approached Vettel shortly after his move to Ferrari was announced to gain an initial impression of Adami, with Vettel providing a glowing endorsement of his former race engineer.
As reported by PlanetF1.com at the time, it emerged in January that Hamilton repeatedly called Vettel for advice before he officially started work with Ferrari in late January with the pair said to have compared notes.
Hamilton was later spotted writing in a notebook in between runs during his first Ferrari tests at Fiorano and Barcelona, a method frequently employed by Vettel throughout his F1 career.
Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com following the launch of Ferrari’s SF-25 car last month, Hamilton opened up about the challenges of adjusting to life at Ferrari after his long stint at Mercedes.
He said: “It’s completely different. I thought it (would be just) another Formula 1 car.
“I thought it would be (like) when I went from McLaren to Mercedes – there were similarities, but I guess it was still powered by Mercedes, so the sound, the vibration, was all the same or was similar.
“Whilst there were slightly different characteristics of the car, this is a step with the whole thing being completely different.
“It’s a really exciting experience. This is something I’ve really enjoyed trying to wrap my mind around, particularly also just in settings and the terminology they use, the different ways that they can set up a car – that’s taken some getting used to, for sure.
“It’s rare that you just jump in and it just fits.
“For example, the steering wheel is completely different, everything, all these switches are completely different. The software is different, everything.
“Not only am I having to adapt to that, but I am also adapting to a car that’s made quite differently from what I’ve worked with in the past to achieve a similar sort of thing.
“The feeling is a lot different. I don’t feel that currently, I’m having to change my driving style too much. I’m actually feeling quite comfortable in the car and just taking one step at a time.
“I hope, and we’ll see as we get further down the line at the real race circuits that we go into, just how much aligned and how much change I might need to do.
“But the key is to be open-minded and be dynamic. Luckily, with my experience, I should be able to do that.”
