When news emerged on Wednesday that Lewis Hamilton had crashed the 2023 Ferrari car in a private test in Barcelona, the natural response was that his acclimatisation in scarlet red wasn’t quite going according to plan.
It was a shock. But perhaps it shouldn’t have been.
Here, Hamilton has previous. It is an uncanny trend that the British driver – one of F1’s all-time greats – has crashed in private testing with a new team, a matter of weeks before his first bow in fresh colours.
It happened in Valencia in 2007, testing as a McLaren rookie. Then again six years later for Mercedes, on the southern Spanish coast in Jerez. Now, in just his third appearance behind the Scuderia wheel, the 40-year-old crashed into the barriers at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
But does it actually mean anything? Ahead of the 2025 season, The Independent takes a look at those previous crashes – and the wave of success that followed:
McLaren, 2007
The scene was late January, at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia.
Hamilton, a matter of weeks before his F1 debut and that famous first-lap overtake on teammate world champion Fernando Alonso in Australia, was testing his 2007 MP4-22 car just 10 days after its unveiling.
A GP2 champion the year prior, with a habit of pushing his machinery to the limit, the 22-year-old lost control of his car on the pit straight.
At a speed of 185mph, Hamilton’s car spun backwards through the gravel and crashed heavily into a tyre wall. The car was badly damaged. Hamilton’s confidence in the cockpit, however, was not.
“I am completely fine and was conscious throughout,” he said afterwards. “Unfortunately with this sport, these things happen.”
Undeterred, what followed was the greatest rookie season in modern Formula One. Hamilton came within a whisker of a debut F1 world championship, falling excruciatingly at the final hurdle as he spurned a healthy lead at the final two races in China and Brazil.
A year later, however, fortune was on his side as he claimed the 2008 world championship on the final corner of the final lap in Brazil, to the dismay of home hero Felipe Massa.
Mercedes, 2013
Six years on from his debut, Hamilton had made the monumental and shocking decision to switch to Mercedes – leaving his decade-long association with McLaren behind.
Doubts about his bold call were already swirling as he took to the Mercedes W04 for his first day of testing in Jerez in early February. And just 20 minutes in, eyebrows were raised across the paddock.
Hamilton crashed out on his 15th lap of day one running, though this crash was at a mere 35mph into the barrier. A day earlier, Nico Rosberg’s car burst into flames in the German’s first test in the car.
Was Hamilton bothered? Not really.
“I am pretty relaxed about it,” he said, nonchalantly, after the crash. “I’ve been racing for seven years, so it is not like I am lacking in experience.
“I must have been doing about 200mph or so before I hit the brakes coming down the back straight. For a split second, it was working but then the pedal just went straight down.
“It wouldn’t work any more. Then I just had to brace for impact. Because I went in straight my legs took a bit of a thump.
“It’s disappointing for all of us in the team because everyone has worked so hard over the winter and we didn’t anticipate this. But I’m glad we got it out of the way now so we don’t have to worry about it in the future.”
Hamilton finished that first season for the Silver Arrows in fourth, claiming just one solitary win in Hungary, as Mercedes toiled behind Red Bull once more.
Yet new hybrid engine regulations in 2014 marked the start of the Mercedes era of dominance, with Hamilton winning six of the next eight world championships.
Ferrari, 2025
And so to the present day. Hamilton stated it was one of the “best feelings he’s ever had” when he took to the 2023 Ferrari car in Fiorano last week for his first outing in scarlet red.
Yet on Wednesday, in the middle of a three-day behind-closed-doors test in Barcelona, Hamilton dumped the SF-23 into the barriers.
Hamilton was said to be “absolutely fine”, and will be unperturbed as he looks to tune in to a new team and new group of engineers.
The seven-time world champion will undergo a Pirelli tyre test in Barcelona next week, before the official three-day pre-season test for all the teams in Bahrain from 26-28 February. From there, the circus rolls on to the season-opener in Melbourne on 16 March.
Little has been revealed about Hamilton’s crash on Wednesday, but history tells us the Briton was likely looking to seek the limit of his car in the relatively low-risk surroundings of a private test.
That, frankly, can be no bad thing. The cold, winter temperatures are not optimum for this iteration of cars, either, as illustrated by the complaints in the chill of Las Vegas last autumn.
Hamilton is said to be rejuvenated by his blockbuster move this winter. His dad, Anthony, said last week in Maranello that his son had undergone one of his most intense training programmes in the off-season.
The carrot – a record-breaking eighth world title – is genuinely possible this year, should Ferrari provide him with a race-winning car.
So in sum, Ferrari’s devoted fanbase – the tifosi – should not be downbeat by this latest development. In fact, perhaps there would be more concern if Hamilton wasn’t pushing to the limit in testing, as he seeks one final hurrah in the fabled Ferrari red.
