With two ‘alpha’ drivers in their line-up for 2024, Piero Ferrari has downplayed the possibility of problems between Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton.

Lewis Hamilton’s switch to Ferrari for 2025 will see the seven-time F1 World Champion paired with Ferrari’s ‘champion-in-waiting’ Charles Leclerc, who has been groomed for title glory by the Scuderia over the last decade.

With Leclerc yet to land a title, which is more down to Ferrari’s lack of competitiveness than Leclerc falling short, the arrival of Hamilton in his quest to land a record eighth world title could cause plenty of drama in a head-to-head fight.

Vice chairman, board member of Ferrari, and a son of company founder Enzo, Piero Ferrari opened up on the arrival of Hamilton to Maranello in an extensive interview with Italian journalist Leo Turrini.

In the interview, Ferrari revealed Hamilton had ‘joked’ about joining the Scuderia years ago, when he visited Maranello to pick up his LaFerrari – Hamilton saying that if Ferrari had waited 12 months instead of renewing with Sebastian Vettel, he would have been open to a switch.

Ferrari said he was “personally very happy” about Hamilton’s arrival, saying the seven-time World Champion is a “perfect match” for Ferrari’s mystique and that him switching to Ferrari in a bid to emulate Juan Manuel Fangio and Michael Schumacher by arriving at Ferrari as an existing World Champion to win another title is an “auspicious moment”.

But, inevitably, the question of how Hamilton will fit into the dynamic of a team that has focused on Leclerc in recent years, having brought him up into Formula 1 through their driver programme, arose.

Ferrari explained how he sees the pairing work: “Charles is the champion of the future, Ferrari believes in him and has proved it, I think. Hamilton is Hamilton. I don’t see why they should fight.”

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Turrini also spoke with legend of Italian motorsport, Giancarlo Minardi, who said that he doubts whether Hamilton’s arrival will make any difference in terms of helping Ferrari to a title.

“We have to ask ourselves: in all these years has Ferrari lost because of who was driving it?” Minardi questioned.

“[The team] hasn’t been without a title for a generation because of who was behind the wheel’. It follows that Hamilton is no guarantee of success. Just as Vettel was not.

“In F1 it is fundamental to have a winning car. You don’t build a house from the roof up, but from the foundations.”

Minardi also said that he would have kept Sainz, rather than signing Hamilton, and said Leclerc will likely be consoling himself about the threat of Hamilton by looking at his bank account.

But, with Leclerc being confirmed on a new deal just a few days before the Hamilton switch became known, Minardi said he found that an “oddity in the affair”: “Look, they had extended his contract saying they were betting everything on him.

“A week goes by and they put a Myth like Hamilton next to him…”