Hamilton confesses: 'Without Vasseur I wouldn't have gone to Ferrari'

A few months after Lewis Hamilton extended his contract with Mercedes, the Briton already announced that he will race for Ferrari from 2025. A huge coup by the Italian team appears to be largely to the credit of team boss Frederic Vasseur. Lewis Hamilton even admitted in Bahrain that without the Frenchman's presence at Ferrari, the Italian team would not have been an option for him.

Hamilton and Vasseur have had a close friendship for many years. "I've got a great relationship with Fred," Hamilton told the international press conference. "Obviously, I raced with him in F3, and we had we had amazing success in F3, and also in GP2, and that's really where the foundation of our relationship started."

"We always remained in touch, and I thought he was gonna be an amazing team manager at some stage and progressed to Formula One, but at the time he wasn't interested in that. It was really cool to see him step into the Alfa Romeo team, and then when he got the jump at Ferrari, I was just so happy for him. And I think just the stars aligned, and it [the move to Ferrari] really wouldn't have happened without him, so I'm really grateful and I'm really excited about the work that he's doing there."

Hamilton wanted to be like Schumacher

On his Instagram account, Hamilton previously indicated that driving for Ferrari was always a dream. On that, he said on Friday: "Of course, I think for every driver growing up, looking at history and seeing Michael Schumacher in his prime. I think probably all of us sit in our garage and see the screen pop up, and then you see a driver in the red cockpit, and you wonder what it'd be like to be surrounded by that."

"You'll go to the Italian Grand Prix, and you'll see the sea of red Ferrari fans, and you can only stand in awe of that. It's a team that's not had huge success since, mostly obviously from Michael's days, but since 2007, and I saw it as a huge challenge.  Without a doubt, even as a kid, I used to play a GP2 as Michael in that car. So, it definitely is a dream, and I’m really excited about it," Hamilton said.