'It Will Be Interesting' To See If Hamilton Can Achieve What Vettel And Alonso Couldn't

Thursday, 25 April 2024 at 15:15

In one of his most recent interviews, 1997 F1 World Champion Jacques Villeneuve discussed how he sees Lewis Hamilton's future team-up with Ferrari.

The 2025 season will be particularly exciting because we will see a team-up between the most successful driver and the most successful team in F1 history.

Both Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari have been waiting for their next title for quite a while (Ferrari for a bit more than the British driver), and they will now join forces with the mutual goal of achieving success together.

The question is, can the 39-year-old driver (who will turn 40 next year) help to bring the Italian team to the top? There has been more than one World Champion before him who couldn't, as Jacques Villeneuve pointed out in his interview with GPFans:

"They tried with [Sebastian] Vettel, but Vettel was burnt out by the time he joined Ferrari. [Fernando] Alonso had almost worked out, but it became too chaotic."

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Ever since their last title in 2008, the team from Maranello has achieved six consecutive second-place finishes in the Championship. Villeneuve suggests the seven-time World Champion might be the last piece of the puzzle the team needs to break that "almost, but no" streak.

"Lewis could be the one to finally put the past Ferrari behind and has, and this might be the Ferrari version two. You know you get the biggest driver of all time joining the biggest team of all time."

"It's hard to make it any better than that at a time when Ferrari needs to start winning again. They need something good going on because they've spent the last 10-15 years of 'almost but no.'"

The 1997 Champion confessed he never thought Vettel would be able to win with Ferrari, but he cannot tell how the 39-year-old Mercedes driver will perform.

However, it seems like Villeneuve believes Ferrari might have the best chance in the last couple of years with Hamilton in one of their cars.

"It will be interesting to see if Lewis manages to do what Alonso and Vettel did not manage to do. I never thought Vettel would do it. I thought at the time Alonso might be able to do it because he got close and he was a hard fighter, and Lewis might be the one to do it now."

"And also, Jock [Clear] is in the team, and I'm curious if Jock will become his engineer or not because that was very profitable for Lewis. That would be the logical winning combination at Ferrari."