Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari have been sent a brutal reality check by ex-F1 driver Jarno Trulli, who has claimed the Brit’s transfer will ‘change nothing’ and that Red Bull are still ‘unbeatable’.
Hamilton’s blockbuster move to Ferrari rocked the F1 world this week with the Brit announcing he will be racing in red from 2025 after over a decade at Mercedes.
Despite the bombshell news causing huge excitement, former F1 driver Trulli has put a dampener on it by insisting that Hamilton won’t be able to turn Ferrari into serious title challengers, with Max Verstappen and Red Bull dominating the sport over the last three years.
The 49-year-old, who raced for several teams in his F1 career between 1997 and 2011, told La Repubblica: “Lewis is fulfilling his boyhood dream, but the switch alone is not enough: the Red Bulls are currently unbeatable. The news hit like a bomb: a seven-time world champion going to the most important and prestigious team. But it’s not like it changes things.
“You can field as many champions as you want, but if the car and the team cannot compete, the result with Hamilton will not change much compared to the results of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. Sure, you have a champion who is still one of the best drivers on the market, with a lot of experience, even if he is getting on in age. But that does not give you a guarantee to win.
“The priority is to win titles, not to have a seven-time world champion in the house. Frankly, I think Hamilton is going to benefit more from this than Ferrari.”
However, another former F1 driver has completely disagreed with Trulli. Gerhard Berger believes that Hamilton will have a similar impact to Michael Schumacher and heaped praise on Ferrari for pulling off the deal.
Speaking to Corriere della Sera, he said: “Signing Hamilton seems like the best decision ever to me. It is a step I have waited for a long time. This is great news. Hamilton brings a new dynamic to the team, different from what happened with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. Sometimes you need an energetic change within a team.
“I am convinced that with Lewis there will be new skills, new engineers and a new way of making decisions at Maranello, driven by a motivation that everyone in the team will feel. Something like what happened when Schumacher joined Ferrari.”
