Explained: Lewis Hamilton and Fred Vasseur's first title win together

Ferrari hasn’t won a world championship in Formula 1 since 2008, but the combination of Lewis Hamilton and Fred Vasseur could be key to ending the team’s longest title drought.

Vasseur has already proven his worth after being parachuted into the role of team principal at the start of 2023, with the Prancing Horse finishing a close second in the teams’ standings last year.

And while Ferrari’s driver line-up wasn’t a problem in recent years, the addition of seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton gives the team every reason to believe it can become champions again.

Vasseur was instrumental in Ferrari’s poaching of Hamilton from Mercedes, with the Briton admitting that the move wouldn’t have been possible if he wasn’t leading the squad.

Lewis Hamilton and Fred Vasseur have history

Hamilton and Ferrari have a long association dating back to the junior formula racing scene in the mid-noughties.

It was with Vasseur’s Mercedes-powered ASM team that Hamilton won the Formula 3 Euro Series title in his second season in the category in 2005.

But it was the following year that Hamilton and Vasseur’s relationship truly bloomed, as Hamilton stepped up to GP2 with the ART team co-owned by Vasseur and Nicolas Todt.

ART had already powered Hamilton’s future Mercedes F1 teammate Nico Rosberg to the GP2 title in 2005, so the pressure was on the then-21-year-old to build on Rosberg’s success and secure his own move to F1.

But to do so, he would have had to beat a talented cast of drivers, many of whom had raced the Dallara GP2/05 the previoys year. Nelson Piquet Jr, Timo Glock, Jose Maria Lopez and Lucas di Grassi were just a few of the adversaries he had to face on his climb up to F1.

Hamilton’s task was even harder because he was a complete rookie in GP2, unlike most of the competition, but with the guidance of Vasseur, he was able to get up to speed straight away and deliver on his potential.

In his very first race in F1’s premier feeder category, Hamilton finished on the podium, ending up second behind race winner Piquet Jr.

By round three, he was already a race winner, and during the summer he kicked off a run of three consecutive victories, spread between the Monaco and Silverstone rounds. This gave him a substantial 17-point lead in the standings over Piquet Jr, making him the outright favourite for the title in the second half of the season.

Even when he hit a rough patch, Vasseur was by Hamilton’s side and the two turned things around at the penultimate round of the year in Turkey, where Hamilton put on a masterful drive to underline his credentials as a future F1 champion.

Dropping to 19th after an early spin in the sprint race, the Stevenage native picked off his rivals at a rate of knots, passing both Timo Glock and Adam Carroll on the final lap to complete an impressive recovery drive in second.

The result went a long way in helping Hamilton clinch the 2006 GP2 title, which he sealed at the next (and the final) round at Monza just a few weeks later.

GP2 title key to Lewis Hamilton's growth

While Hamilton was always destined for great things, ART played a significant role in the Briton winning the GP2 title as a rookie.

According to Hamilton’s GP2 teammate Alexandre Premat, the presence of a skilled manager like Vasseur allowed everyone at ART to perform to their potential.

He likened Vasseur to Mercedes F1 team boss Toto Wolff, who developed a close relationship with Hamilton during his 12 years at the team.

“When you see those big heads in F1 like Toto Wolff, [McLaren boss] Zak Brown, Fred, they’re inspiring a lot of people, for sure,” Premat told the official F1 site.

“Fred’s hard [in his approach], and he says stuff as it is, but he’s very fair. Every human is different in the way they carry out their tasks, but Fred has a really good way of doing it.

“Fred going from F3 and GP2 to F1 with Renault, then Sauber and now Ferrari, it seems to be working out pretty well for him. From the last two years at Ferrari, there are only positive stories about him and the way he works. Although, back in 2006, I don’t think Fred would have said he would be the team boss of Ferrari today!”

Premat has reason to believe that Vasseur and Hamilton can replicate their success at Ferrari, and feels their reunion can only bring good news for the Prancing Horse.

“I think it will bring some fire [back],” he said. “I think getting those stories back and those moments back from when they were winning together, they’ll be saying, ‘Let’s do it again!’

“It’s a rhythm and a cycle. Fred is so strong at bringing people together. As I said, he’s a cool guy, he’s fun, but he can be hard when it’s needed. It’s the same with Lewis. I think that’s going to be a power, like lightning, lighting them up – both of them, but the team also.

“I’m sure it’s already clicked. Even if it’s like 19 years ago, it will be the same. Fred knows how to speak to Lewis, and the same way in return, Lewis knows what to say to Fred, because they already had the experience in F3 and GP2.”

Fred Vasseur reunited with Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari

For Vasseur, managing young drivers (and their fathers) has always been a key strength. While Hamilton moved up immediately to F1 after his title success, Vasseur continued to run the ART team in GP2/GP3 until Renault offered him a job in F1 in 2016.

In that sense, helming a team whose newest signing is a 40-year-old, seven-time champion will be a new experience for Vasseur.

But the Frenchman clearly has all the skills needed to run a professional team at the pinnacle of motorsport, and Ferrari has only gone from strength to strength since it handed him keys to Maranello in 2023 based on his previous work at Sauber.

Hamilton, too, is “reinvigorated” after a mixed final season at Mercedes, with the prospect of winning a world championship with Ferrari giving him a renewed sense of focus as he enters the twilight years of his career.

While Hamilton and Vasseur do not have the luxury of time to replicate what Michael Schumacher and Jean Todt did at Ferrari, the two can still achieve a lot of success before Hamilton decides to hang up his helmet and pursue other interests outside of racing.