The 12-year Toto Wolff request Lewis Hamilton completed on first Ferrari day
Oliver Harden

A studio shot of Lewis Hamilton in Ferrari overalls with an inset of Toto Wolff looking annoyed
Lewis Hamilton left Mercedes for Ferrari after 12 seasons with the Brackley team

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has declared that he wants “to beat” Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari on track in F1 2025 despite the firm friendship between the pair.

And he joked that he spent 12 years trying to convince Hamilton to wear a suit, only for the seven-time World Champion to complete the task on his first day as a Ferrari driver in January.

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It comes after Hamilton was spotted leaving his former team principal’s home in Monaco last week, just days ahead of his Ferrari debut.

More than a year after his shock Mercedes exit was announced, Hamilton will make his long-awaited Ferrari debut at this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix, the opening race of the F1 2025 season.

Hamilton’s switch to Ferrari marks only the second team move of his illustrious F1 career, with his only previous transfer occurring at the beginning of 2013 when he swapped McLaren for Mercedes.

Hamilton, who turned 40 in January, cemented his status as the most decorated driver in F1 history over the course of 12 seasons with Mercedes, equalling Michael Schumacher’s record of seven World Championships in 2020 before becoming the first man to reach 100 race wins and pole positions the following year.

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His decision to leave Mercedes, whose engines have powered all 356 of his F1 starts to date, came after he suffered two winless seasons for the first time in his career in 2022/23 as the team struggled to adjust to the ground-effect regulations.

Speaking to Austrian outlet ORF, Wolff admitted that he is willing to put aside his personal friendship with Hamilton as Mercedes aim to beat Ferrari on track in F1 2025.

He said: “We are still very good friends. On a personal level, I wish him only the best, but on the track I want to beat him.”

Hamilton’s first public appearances with Ferrari came in late January, when he visited the team’s Maranello factory and Fiorano test track for the first time before commencing an extensive period of private testing to prepare for his first season with the Scuderia.

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Wolff admitted that he already considers it “normal” to see Hamilton wearing Ferrari red after so many years with Mercedes.

And he quipped that he was surprised to see a suited-and-booted Hamilton pose outside the house of legendary team founder Enzo Ferrari, having resisted requests to wear formal attire throughout his career with Mercedes.

He said: “At first it was a strange thought to imagine him in a different colour after so many years in Mercedes.

“But then he arrived, so to speak, with his red suit and his red car. In this fast-changing world, you adapt quickly.

“So now, Lewis Hamilton in red is already a normal thing.

“The first photos, especially the iconic one showing him in front of Enzo Ferrari’s house in his ‘godfather’ suit.

“I told him: ‘For twelve years I’ve been trying to get you to wear a suit with a tie and you did it on your first day at Ferrari.’

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“He laughed and replied: ‘I’m still not sure I look good in a suit.’

“It was a great photo.”

Since being posted on January 20, the first official image of Hamilton outside the late Mr Ferrari’s office has become the most popular F1-related Instagram post of all time, accumulating 5.7 million ‘likes’ at the time of writing.

Reports in Italy at the time claimed that Hamilton’s smart attire was intended as a tribute to Mr Ferrari, who was frequently photographed wearing a suit and overcoat before his death in August 1988.

Hamilton’s image led to a series of spoofs online, with celebrity F1 fan and television presenter Jeremy Clarkson replicating the photograph at his farm.

Clarkson’s spoof was followed by a similar effort by Mercedes sponsor IWC, whose 90-year-old founder Kurt Klaus posed alongside a Mercedes road car.