Lewis Hamilton addresses black Ferrari F1 2025 livery change amid ‘impact work’ plan

Lewis Hamilton will join Ferrari on a multi-year deal from F1 2025

Lewis Hamilton has dismissed the suggestion that he will push for Ferrari to adopt a black livery following his arrival from Mercedes in the F1 2025 season.

Hamilton rocked the F1 world earlier this year by announcing that he will join Ferrari on a multi-year contract from F1 2025, ending his long and successful association with Mercedes.

Lewis Hamilton won’t push for black Ferrari livery for F1 2025

The British driver has won six of the his joint-record seven World Championships with Mercedes, with the German manufacturer’s engines powering every single one of Hamilton’s 341 appearances since his debut with McLaren back in 2007.

Hamilton’s relationship with Mercedes has extended far beyond the racetrack, with the team loyally supporting the 39-year-old’s campaign for greater diversity in F1 and the motor racing industry over recent years.

That extended to Mercedes adopting a predominantly black livery ahead of the delayed F1 2020 season in a message against racism, with the colour scheme retained for the following year.

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After reverting to their traditional silver hue for F1 2022,  Mercedes reverted to an all-black car last season with the design of this year’s W15 chassis incorporating both black and silver.

It has been suggested that Hamilton could attempt to persuade Ferrari to part with their iconic scarlet-red shade in favour of a black livery for F1 2025.

Speaking at last weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix, however, Hamilton addressed the topic and hinted that his “impact work” with Ferrari president John Elkann is more likely to manifest itself off track during his time at Maranello.

Asked if he has considered requesting a black Ferrari F1 car for next season, he told reporters: “I haven’t driven a black car for a while, so I probably won’t be pushing for that too early on, but no.

“We’ve definitely spoken about impact work and John and the team have a lot of philanthropy work that they do, so we’ll be working very closely with Mission 44 and with the impact stuff that they’re doing.

“I think within the sport, we have to continue to do more, but more outside we’ll be doing quite a bit together, so that’s really exciting.”

Hamilton’s comments come after it emerged that F1’s governing body the FIA is pushing for more “distinguishable” liveries for next season amid the rise of exposed-carbon liveries.

Since the ground-effect rules were introduced ahead of the F1 2022 season, several teams have left large sections of their cars unpainted in a desperate bid to save weight, resulting in a grid made up of largely black cars.

While keen to stop short of introducing livery-related regulations, the FIA is keen to encourage more communication between teams to avoid too much crossover in design.

Appearing on the Sky F1 podcast, former McLaren and Force India engineer Bernie Collins claimed it is possible for teams to add colour to exposed carbon, but warned that the results could prove underwhelming compared to the traditional paint solution.

She said: “I believe there are methods of colouring carbon fibre, because you can either colour the resin, which would give a little bit, but it’s not going to look as good as the paint that we currently have.

“So carbon fibre works best when it’s black, just because the resins and everything works right. You could tinge it, but you wouldn’t get like a Ferrari red – you’d get like a very dull sheen to it, I think.

“The big problem with colour in the component, for example, is that if you can imagine a sidepod on a car and when it lines up and they mount it together, that’s when they paint it, whereas if you’re putting the paint on at the manufacturing level, you have to be very clear that’s going to end up with the right position further down the line in terms of the car.

“So you’re making the manufacturing of that component much, much more complicated.

“I think that there’s potential that we start the year with a lot of these carbon-strong liveries and as teams find ways to save weight through the year, then more and more paint may go back on.

“Because the car is generally the heaviest at the beginning of the year and then teams start to find ways to make it lighter as they build knowledge and reliability or whatever the case may be.

“And as we get more and more into the regulations then hopefully teams will start down that path as well.”

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