Lewis Hamilton is enjoying his newfound purple patch as a Ferrari Formula 1 driver, thanks to its SF-26 challenger. But the seven-time World Champion has been sighted in something a little different.
Hamilton took his first Grand Prix win in nearly two years in Barcelona last time out, securing victory through a brave but brilliant strategy by race engineer Carlo Santi.
The Brit’s scintillating performance heralded the return of a driver whose best days were considered behind him by many fans and pundits, and cemented second place in the Drivers’ Championship.
After the race, Hamilton recollected eating lunch on his sofa as an 11-year-old boy in 1996, watching Michael Schumacher take his first win for the Maranello-based squad at the same circuit.
“I think this is the first step of our story and I was just being reminded that it was 30 years ago that Michael won, and I would have been I was at home on my couch watching that race.
“For me like many of you and with a plate on my lap eating like a sandwich – or maybe it was chicken noodle soup or something like that. I would, on a Sunday – I was 12 – if I wasn’t racing and yeah, just looking at that red car and thinking, ‘what it’s like to sit in the red cockpit?'”
The Ferrari Lewis Hamilton drove at Fiorano
Hamilton’s connection to Schumacher’s time at Ferrari – which yielded five World Championships between 1996 and 2006 – has been welded together a little more, in a more unusual way.
A three-seater car, designed by Rory Byrne – the designer of Schumacher’s title-winning challengers – which was based on the hugely-successful F2002, was seen at Ferrari’s private Fiorano test track, with Hamilton at the wheel.
The car was tweaked in 2013, and boasts a staggering 800 horsepower, and, like similar cars that a number of F1 teams in the late 1990s and early 2000s produced, was built to give fans a chance to experience the thrills quite similar to what drivers take for granted.
View the footage below!
🚨 Lewis Hamilton è a Fiorano alla guida della F1 a tre posti. Il rombo dell’aspirato è sempre poesia #F1 #Hamilton #Fiorano pic.twitter.com/aT3JbcBjf0
— RobertoF1 (@robertofunoat) June 19, 2026
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