Former Ferrari race engineer Rob Smedley has revealed that long-serving Maranello personnel are drawing direct comparisons between seven-time champions Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher.
After a troublesome maiden marketing campaign with Ferrari in 2025, Hamilton has bounced again below this season’s new Components 1 technical rules. Having claimed his long-awaited first victory in pink on the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, together with a string of podium finishes, the 41-year-old at present sits second within the drivers’ championship on the summer season break.
Commercial
In response to Smedley, who spent a decade at Ferrari in the course of the Schumacher period and past, Hamilton’s affect is invigorating the group.
“I’ll give Lewis a shout-out on this. It additionally appears like he pushes the group laborious, proper? And we have talked about this earlier than: if you get a driver of his standing in, the group simply feels 1% extra succesful,” Smedley defined on the Excessive Efficiency Racing podcast.
“They love him. Once I speak to the blokes, one-on-one or in all of the group chats that I am in, all of them completely love him as a result of he is delivering, proper?
Commercial
“And he is a seven-time world champion they usually know that he’s any person who can ship. He can nonetheless ship world championships, however he is pushing them as effectively. He is pushing them in the suitable approach, they usually recognise that.”
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Smedley argued that Hamilton’s method is bringing again reminiscences of Ferrari’s most dominant interval. Schumacher joined the historic group in 1996. At that time, Ferrari had not received a drivers’ championship since 1979 or a constructors’ championship since 1983.
Commercial
The German went on to assist remodel the group and safe 5 of his seven titles in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004, and assist Ferrari win six constructors’ titles.
“The fellows who’ve been there for 20 years or extra, they recognise the similarities between him and Michael,” Smedley added.
To learn extra Motorsport.com articles go to our web site.
