Former Ferrari man cautions Lewis Hamilton against playing a 'dangerous game' as he heads to the Italian team in 2025

Former Ferrari race engineer Rob Smedley has claimed Lewis Hamilton should avoid the "dangerous game" of taking members from Mercedes to the Italian team. The seven-time world champion will be moving to the Scarlet team at the beginning of the 2025 season after he surprised everyone with the move from Mercedes at the beginning of 2024.

Hamilton spent 26 years with the German brand and 12 years with the main team and saw a dominant period in F1 from 2014 to 2021 when he won six driver's championships. However, he joined Ferrari on a multi-year deal and activated his release clause from the Brackley-based outfit.

Speaking to the "Formula For Success" podcast, Smedley, the race engineer of Felipe Massa at the Maranello-based outfit, advised Hamilton not to bring an "entourage" with him to his next team. He said (via Express):

“When a seven-time world champion chooses your team to come and work at your team. I don't think he needs to bring an entourage with him. And I always spoke about this, this publicly, both for Lewis Hamilton himself and for people like Bono [Peter Bonnington].

I think that it's quite a dangerous game to play to follow the driver around because if the driver falls out of favor or the driver decides that after one year this is not for him, he can't take the entourage with him. So I think that Lewis has done the right thing."

In February, Hamilton said that every driver wants to race for the red team as he too grew up watching Michael Schumacher dominate the sport with Ferrari in the early 2000s.

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Lewis Hamilton on his motivation to join Ferrari

F1 Grand Prix Of Singapore SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE - SEPTEMBER 22: Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain driving the (44) Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team W15 on track during the F1 Grand Prix of Singapore at Marina Bay Street Circuit on September 22, 2024 in Singapore, Singapore. (Photo by Lars Baron - Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton spoke about the adoring Tifosi and their support during the Italian GP and said (via F1):

“Of course, I think for every driver growing up, watching the history, watching Michael Schumacher in his prime, I think probably all of us sit in our garage and see the screen pop up, and you see the driver in the red cockpit and you wonder what it would be like to be surrounded by the red.

You go to the Italian Grand Prix and you see the sea of red Ferrari fans and you can only stand in awe of that. Without a doubt, even as a kid, I used to play [in games] as Michael in that car, so it definitely is a dream and I’m really, really excited about it.”

Hamilton will partner Charles Leclerc at the Scuderia next year and make another attempt for an elusive eighth championship. He will rejoin Frederic Vassuer at the team, who guided him to his F2 title with ART Grand Prix in 2006, which enabled him to make his F1 debut the following year.