Fiorano Modenese (Italy), Jan 22: Lewis Hamilton waved to a crowd of waiting fans on Wednesday as he drove a Ferrari Formula 1 car for the first time since joining the Italian team for the 2025 season. Hamilton was behind the wheel of a 2023-specification Ferrari SF-23 bearing his racing number, 44, at the team's Fiorano test track, and wore a new helmet design in yellow with a prominent Prancing Horse logo.

The 40-year-old British driver set out for his first lap at 9:16 a.m. local time in light fog and twice waved to a crowd of around 1,000 spectators, who had gathered on a nearby bridge despite the cold and wet weather. Hamilton has shaken up F1 with his move to Ferrari after 12 years with Mercedes, where he won six of his seven world titles. He has said he's fulfilling a childhood dream.

Lewis Hamilton Waves to Fans

“I've been lucky enough to have achieved things in my career I never thought possible, but part of me has always held on to that dream of racing in red. I couldn't be happier to realize that dream today," he said Monday after arriving at Ferrari's Maranello headquarters for his first day at work with the new team.

F1 tightly restricts teams from testing current-specification cars but the rules are more loose for older cars like the SF-23 that Hamilton drove Wednesday. Pre-season testing for the new season's cars is from Feb. 26 through 28 in Bahrain.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)