Most racing drivers dream of becoming the Formula 1 world champion with Ferrari one day. But very few manage to turn that dream into reality.
This year Lewis Hamilton aims to prove otherwise. His move from Mercedes to Ferrari ranks among the most significant transfers in F1 history because it connects the most successful driver (seven world titles) with the most successful team (15 drivers' and 16 constructors' championships).
But Hamilton is by no means the first world champion to make the switch to Maranello. Other title winners have also tried their luck in red – with varying degrees of success.
We take a look at the first grand prix weekend for each of those champions – and whether it foreshadowed a successful title campaign…
1956: Fangio takes a shared victory
Juan Manuel Fangio was already the most successful driver of Formula 1's first decade when he moved to Ferrari for the 1956 season. He had already won titles in 1951 with Alfa Romeo, in 1954 with Maserati and Mercedes, and in 1955 with Mercedes.
It was a hallmark of Fangio’s career that he ruthlessly sought out the most competitive seats. But this marriage with Ferrari was born out of convenience rather than love, since Merc’s withdrawal from racing and Maserati’s shaky finances made Maranello his best option.
Fangio’s home race in Argentina was his first grand prix for Ferrari. But it didn’t go according to plan: a faulty fuel pump slowed him down, prompting him to take over team-mate Luigi Musso’s car on lap 30 of 98.
Musso had been running in fifth place before handing over. Fangio took off in pursuit of the leaders but overcooked it after passing Jean Behra’s Maserati, losing time to a spin.
Then, over the course of three laps as half-distance approached in the three-hour event, the frontrunners hit trouble. Fangio’s other team-mate Eugenio Castellotti suffered a gearbox failure, Carlos Menditeguy's Maserati broke a driveshaft, and an ominous plume of smoke developed in the wake of Stirling Moss’s similar car.
Fangio overtook Behra again and made short work of Moss as his engine continued to tighten up. Since Fangio shared his car with Musso, they split the points for the victory. However, Fangio still left Argentina as the championship leader, thanks to an extra point for the fastest lap.
Mechanical trouble dogged Fangio throughout the season and neither did he get on with team manager Eraldo Sculati; he was only persuaded to remain at Ferrari when he was given a mechanic to tend his car exclusively. When a steering arm broke in the final round at Monza, and Musso refused to hand over his car, Fangio’s title hopes looked precarious until Peter Collins did the decent thing: three points for second place in the shared car was enough to stay ahead of Moss.
Fangio then moved to Maserati for 1957, where he secured his fifth and final title.
1990: Retirement sets the tone for Prost’s time at Ferrari
Alain Prost’s bitter rivalry with Ayrton Senna at McLaren meant something had to change. Even before Prost got the 1989 world championship over the line, he’d made arrangements to move to Ferrari – and infuriated McLaren boss Ron Dennis by dropping his trophy into the crowd after winning the Italian Grand Prix.
Prost therefore carried the number one on his Ferrari 641 for the 1990 season opener at the unloved Phoenix street circuit, where unexpected (and unusual for the Arizona desert) rain on Saturday meant the grid was set by times from Friday – this being an era before qualifying was consolidated into one TV-friendly session. That meant Prost started seventh with team-mate Nigel Mansell 17th.
Gearbox issues dropped Prost to ninth at the start. He fought back to fourth by lap 17 but just four laps later his gearbox gave up completely – a less spectacular retirement than Mansell, who spun out with his engine aflame.
Prost bounced back quickly, though, winning the next race in Brazil – Senna’s home ground – and four more victories kept him in contention against his nemesis. His title hopes, however, ended at the penultimate race in Japan, where Senna had his infamous ‘moment of madness’ at Turn 1 and took both cars out.
The 1991 Ferrari wasn’t competitive enough to string together a title challenge despite the arrival of a new car mid-season. Internal politics built to a point where Prost was fired after the penultimate round, having compared the handling of his car unfavourably with a truck.
1996: Schumacher loses to Irvine
Twice a world champion with Benetton, Michael Schumacher felt compromised by allegations that the team had been cheating and exited his contract early to move to Ferrari. There he faced the challenge of the new V10-powered F310 and team-mate Eddie Irvine, a feisty individual known for not respecting reputations (a trait that had earned him a punch to the head from Senna).
In the season opener in Melbourne, Irvine unexpectedly outperformed Schumacher in qualifying, beating him by two and a half tenths to secure third place on the grid, one spot ahead of Michael. But the fact that they were half a second off the pace of the Williams cars on the front row amply illustrated the challenge facing Ferrari in 1996.
When the race was restarted after a first-lap shunt, Schumacher initially turned the tables on his team-mate and ran third. Brake problems then began to set in, ultimately forcing him to retire and elevating Irvine to third – but it would be Eddie’s only podium that year.
While Irvine only managed three more points finishes and ended the season 10th in the standings, Schumacher claimed three victories in the ungainly-looking F310 in Barcelona, Spa, and Monza. He finished third in the championship behind the dominant Williams drivers, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve.
The following seasons took a relentless upward trajectory: from 2000 to 2004, Michael took five consecutive world championships in red.
2010: Vettel’s misfortune is Alonso’s gain
When the McLaren relationship turned sour and a return to Renault proved disappointing, Alonso turned to Ferrari in 2010 in the hope of winning a third world championship. But his opening weekend in Bahrain began with disappointment: he qualified 0.35s behind team-mate Felipe Massa.
In the race, Alonso got the upper hand over Massa and ran second until a spark plug failure slowed down leader Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull. Alonso took advantage, swiftly overtook the ailing RB6, and won by 16.1s.
After this early success, Alonso didn’t win another race until round 11, in Germany (controversially, when Ferrari imposed illegal team orders via coded message). A late-season flurry of three further wins meant he arrived at the finale in Abu Dhabi with a narrow points lead over Vettel’s team-mate, Mark Webber, and Vettel himself.
But, despite Vettel’s presence on pole position, the Ferrari pitwall had its eyes on the wrong Red Bull. Pitting early to cover Webber’s stop left Alonso stuck behind Vitaly Petrov’s Renault and consigned him to seventh place at the flag, while Vettel won the race and the championship.
Alonso’s disappointed face after the chequered flag became a meme, symbolising his title-less years at Ferrari.
2015: A podium for Vettel
After a winless and frustrating 2014 season, Vettel abandoned Red Bull and sought a fresh start at Ferrari. The Scuderia’s 2015 car was better than its disappointing predecessor and Vettel narrowly outperformed team-mate Kimi Raikkonen to secure fourth on the grid in Melbourne.
Vettel stood little chance against the dominant Mercedes duo of Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, but he did manage to pass Massa’s Williams in the pitstop phase, grabbing third place. He held that position until the chequered flag – a good start to his Ferrari career given Mercedes’ pace advantage.
Indeed, Vettel seemed to overturn the established competitive order in his very next race, qualifying second to Hamilton in Malaysia and then beating both Mercedes in the race. Two more victories in Hungary and Singapore cemented him as Ferrari’s lead driver, with Raikkonen cast as dutiful number two.
However, Vettel was fated never to achieve his ambition of winning a championship with Ferrari.
What about Hamilton?
Is there anything approaching a pattern in this history of previous champions gunning for further glory in red? Only that Ferrari debuts can vary dramatically, even for the best of the best.
Some, like Fangio and Alonso, hit the ground running with victories. Others, like Schumacher and Vettel, needed more time to find their rhythm. And some, like Prost, faced immediate setbacks that foreshadowed greater disappointments.
Now, as Hamilton embarks on his Ferrari journey in 2025, the big question remains: will his debut be a sign of things to come?
