Twenty-eight years into a career strolling the Formula One paddock with a nose for a story, Sky F1’s roving reporter Ted Kravitz digests the inner workings of the sport and their protagonists better than anyone. Some of it may be fiction, some may be gossip and some may be fact. Yet when it came to the biggest transfer in the history of F1, it was foreseen many moons ago.
Locked in conversation on Sky Sports F1 after Lewis Hamilton’s fourth world championship in 2017, Kravitz is asked what the future holds for the Mercedes driver. His timing is a smidge out – he guessed three years, rather than six – but he forecasted that Hamilton would want to conclude his career racing for Ferrari.
It may not seem the boldest prediction in the world, but amid Mercedes’ sheer dominance at the time, it all seemed a bit pie in the sky. However, as the gargantuan hype builds surrounding Hamilton’s first public engagement in scarlet red at F1 75 Live on Tuesday night in London, Kravitz cannot help but revisit his inspired moment of foresight.
“I basically predicted Lewis moving to Ferrari,” Kravitz tells The Independent. “It was a bit of a guess at the time but it seemed that the lure of Ferrari and their significance in the sport… he always thought it would be very cool to be a Ferrari driver.
“He likes the brand, he has some of the road cars which is always a help. When you look at it now, it seems a natural thing to do. It’s put a spring in his step, hasn’t it? A spring in the step of F1, just to see how he’s going to do too.
“This story will be the gift that keeps on giving this year.”
The countdown to Hamilton’s Ferrari debut in Australia, less than a month away, is on. Kravitz acknowledges that the fanfare surrounding this transfer is unmatched; to come close, you would have to go all the way back to Michael Schumacher’s move from Benetton to the prancing horse in 1996.
Yet Kravitz is insistent that Hamilton’s stint in Italy will not be fully defined by claiming a record-breaking eighth title. As the 40-year-old enters his 18th season in the sport, Sky’s man-on-the-ground says the Brit has made “peace” with perhaps not breaking the record he holds jointly with Schumacher.
“I don’t know whether he feels that he has to win anything, really,” Kravitz says.
“He’s got a year, maybe two, if he’s still motivated and quick and enjoying it. I don’t even know if he needs to win an eighth, I just think he wants to give a good account of himself and have some fun.
“Maybe the 2026 regulations will give him an edge. I don’t think there’s any imperative to win this year rather than next year.
“He just wants to make a good account of himself. I don’t think his whole move to Ferrari is dependent on winning an eighth championship. I think he’s made his peace with not winning an eighth when he had an opportunity to do it [in 2021].”
Hamilton’s first official Ferrari photo in Janaury, posing in a striking black suit in front of Enzo Ferrari’s house, became the most-liked F1 post ever on Instagram, as he was introduced to the sport’s most fabled team in Maranello. He has undergone private tests in Fiorano and Barcelona in the month since - with a crash in Catalunya a few weeks ago nothing more than a blip - while he will first drive the 2025 SF-25 after Ferrari’s own launch in Maranello on Wednesday.
From there, it will be pre-season testing in Bahrain next week (26-28 February) before the season-opener in Melbourne a fortnight later.
But with McLaren’s constructors’ victory last year and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen claiming a fourth-straight drivers’ title, it will be far from just Ferrari in the mix in 2025.
“It’s so difficult to know what’s been going on in the factories,” Kravitz says, wary of making another prediction. “Red Bull now understand where they went wrong, will they sort themselves out?
“Will Mercedes be there? And we’ve got Lando [Norris] and Oscar [Piastri] in their third season at McLaren. Three seasons [for Piastri] is when we start to see where drivers really are, if they’re actually delivering.
“So I see it more as the story of eight drivers, rather than four teams. Melbourne is a peculiar circuit and we start the season back there, so the result we get there might be different to the one in testing.”
“I think it’s going to be super tight this year.”
Sky Sports is the exclusive home of Formula 1 in the UK & Ireland. Don't miss the start of the 2025 World Championship live from Melbourne, Australia, March 14-16th, only on Sky Sports and NOW.
