Lewis Hamilton still has to wait out the rest of the 2024 Formula 1 season in a somewhat underperforming Mercedes before he leaves the team after 12 seasons to head to Ferrari next year. However, some images recently released by Ferrari seem to not-so-subtly hint that the seven-time champion could already be enjoying the perks of his contract with the Scuderia.
Ferrari Races, the division of the Maranello company that oversees its factory World Endurance Championship effort, GT3 programme and Ferrari Challenge customer race series, recently tweeted an interesting series of photos of a 499P Modificata running at the Fiorano test track.
The 499P Modificata is a modified version of the 499P, Ferrari’s current entry in the World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar class, and the car that took a fairytale win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2023. Featuring a 3.0-litre, twin-turbo V6 derived from the one in the 296 GTB, it’s designed to be a 499P unbound by the WEC’s regulations, and offered for sale to wealthy Ferrari customers for use as a high-end track toy.
Though he’s owned several Ferrari road cars in the past, Hamilton isn’t exactly known as a voracious collector of the brand’s cars. His F1 seat with the team, though, may well have leapfrogged him to the front of the waiting list for a 499P Modificata, because the car in these images features a very prominent number 44, which even the most casual of F1 fans will know as Hamilton’s race number.
Ferrari 499P
The black and yellow colour scheme of this car isn’t one that’s particularly associated with Hamilton, but Carscoops does point out that it’s not totally unprecedented: in the film Cars 2, Hamilton voiced a racing car called, erm, Lewis Hamilton, which bore a similar scheme.
Perhaps it’s a coincidence, but the fact that the very first of the four images posted by Ferrari is a close-up of the ‘44’ roundel leads us to think it’s probably dropping a hint. Either that, or we’re all being trolled. We may well find out for sure once Hamilton makes the move to Maranello next year.
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