Lewis Hamilton, seven-time world champion, and former Mercedes AMG Patronous driver for Formula 1, should not have left Mercedes. Following the recent off season, Hamilton announced on Feb. 1 that he would not be extending his contract with Mercedes and instead would be joining the Scuderia Ferrari Formula One team for the 2025 season. While rumors spread quickly about what this change would mean, it is clear that Hamilton is taking a massive chance on Ferrari and it might not give him the results he is looking for.

Scuderia Ferrari has had a long history of successful drivers, but it hasn’t had a good showing recently of taking in past world champions. Take, for instance, Sebastian Vettel, who made the switch from Red Bull Oracle Racing to Ferrari in 2015, after his fourth world championship win and in a very similar position to the one Hamilton is now. In his entire six years at Marcenllo and Ferrari, Vettel never won another world championship and had to face, according to F1, the inherent instability of Ferrari. While he claims that he never regretted the move to Ferrari, as it was his childhood dream, he also tells Sky Sports that his goal was to win a world championship, which he never was able to achieve while driving the red car. While many drivers like Hamilton have had the same childhood dream of Vettel, Hamilton must consider that many drivers who have made the move to Ferrari in recent years haven’t seen the success they wanted. If Hamilton really wanted to get more championship wins, he would make the move to the most recent and long standing championship winning team, not Scuderia Ferrari, which hasn’t won a driver’s championship since 2007 or a team championship since 2008.

Mercedes has better machinery and performance than Ferrari. F1 Technical writes that the Mercedes engine is clearly faster on full throttle than not only the Ferrari engine, but also the Red Bull team’s engine, who won both world championships for the last two seasons. With better machinery and better strategy, Hamilton’s move to Ferrari doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. In the last two seasons especially, we have seen both of Ferrari’s drivers struggle to win races due to the lack of strategy and poor performance from the engine as well as the crew. Charles Leclerc, driver for Ferrari, has had to take 10-place grid penalties for needing to replace his energy units and the Ferrari pit crew has made a number of crucial mistakes when they needed to perform the most.

While many new fans are excited about this move, the main question Ferrari will be faced with is who they should make their #1 driver, or main driver, in their 2025 lineup. Many fans assume that Hamilton will be taking that position as he’s had one of the most successful careers in F1 history, but Ferrari has always been adamant that Leclerc is “their guy”. Even when Fred Vasseur, team principal for Ferrari, continues to claim that there will be no number one or number two driver, it is clear that Ferrari and Leclerc will always go hand in hand especially because of the five year long contracts the team has offered Leclerc, which are almost unheard of in Formula One.

All in all, the move from Mercedes to Ferrari may not have been the best decision on Hamilton’s behalf. We will have to wait until 2025 to see what his Formula One season in Ferrari will truly entail and to see if he will remain a #1 driver in his respective team.