Lewis Hamilton accomplished his high-profile observe debut as a Ferrari F1 driver on Wednesday.
The seven-time world champion examined Ferrari’s 2023 F1 automotive on the workforce’s Fiorano take a look at observe to assist together with his acclimatisation together with his new workforce.
He was timed at precisely one minute per lap, in keeping with AutoRacer. His lap time was influenced by small errors, and by the chilly climate, the report claims.
Hamilton emerged for the primary time at 9:16am native time (8:16 GMT) as he made his method out onto a moist observe in foggy situations for an set up lap.
The 40-year-old Briton coated about 30 laps over 4 runs all through the morning, finishing round 100km of the 1000km most allowance present drivers can conduct for his or her groups beneath F1’s Testing of Earlier Automobiles (TPC) restrictions.
Lewis Hamilton’s first laps in a Ferrari
Lewis Hamilton
Hamilton first sampled moist variations of Pirelli’s non-race weekend ‘Academy’ tyres, earlier than later switching onto slicks for his remaining run which consisted of about 5 laps.
An absence of grip was evident as Hamilton had a number of small lock-ups and ran huge on considered one of his laps throughout his preliminary 10-lap run.
Hamilton’s operating was full by shortly after 11:00 native time (10:00 GMT) as climate situations worsened.
New teammate Charles Leclerc took over behind the wheel of the SF-23 for some moist operating within the afternoon, earlier than thrilling the loyal tifosi with some donuts.
In the course of the lunch break, Hamilton went over to greet the followers who had braved the chilly, murky situations to line the circuit’s perimeter fencing to catch a primary glimpse of their new hero and Ferrari’s star signing.
Sky Sports activities Information reporter Craig Slater was on the bottom and claimed “hundreds” of tifosi had been attending the take a look at which formally occurred behind closed doorways.
Such was the fanfare surrounding Hamilton’s first week at Ferrari, which kicked off with a go to to the workforce’s well-known Maranello headquarters on Monday, a ‘sate of emergency’ was reportedly triggered within the area.
Wednesday’s preliminary take a look at may have offered Hamilton with some early studying about Ferrari’s F1 automobiles, in addition to giving him the prospect to expertise how the Ferrari engine operates.
Till right this moment, Hamilton had solely pushed Mercedes engines all through his 18-year F1 profession.
The day may have additionally allowed Hamilton to rise up to hurry the workforce’s working practices and construct a rapport with new race engineer Riccardo Adami.
Hamilton will probably be permitted to finish round one other 900km of operating in older Ferrari F1 automobiles. It’s understood that Ferrari have booked out the Barcelona circuit for one more TPC outing for Hamilton on the finish of this month.
