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Former F1 team boss Giancarlo Minardi has picked Lewis Hamilton's team Mercedes as surprisingly the team to watch at Imola. The German team is going through a rough time. It has seen its customer, McLaren, win the race in Miami in dominant fashion.
What makes it even worse is that Lewis Hamilton has also called time on his stint at Mercedes. The 2024 F1 season will be the last for the driver as he moves to Ferrari in 2025. Contrary to how the German team has been performing, the Italian team has shown growth and improvement in leaps and bounds.
Ferrari already has a win this season with Carlos Sainz in Melbourne and is expected to bring a major upgrade package to Imola. Minardi, however, was very impressed with what Lewis Hamilton was able to achieve at Miami. The driver secured a P6 with Mercedes and the result according to Giancarlo was a sign of the pedigree of the team.
According to Minardi, it's not Red Bull, McLaren or Ferrari that everyone needs to keep an eye on, but the focus has to be on Mercedes, who could kickstart its campaign at Imola. On his website, Minardi wrote:
"The highly awaited team in Imola is certainly Mercedes. From what we hear their championship should start right from the Enzo and Dino Ferrari Circuit. With sixth place, despite a car that was not at the highest level (in Miami), they showed that they had not won 7 world championships by chance, and could make others pay a high price."
Charles Leclerc could make things tough for Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari
Lewis Hamilton's former teammate, Jenson Button, feels that his future teammate Charles Leclerc could make his life hard at Ferrari. Leclerc is a very talented driver and is considered one of the fastest on the grid. At the same time, he's well-embedded within the Italian team as he's been with them since 2019.
When questioned by Sky Sports about the kind of dynamics he expects at Ferrari, Jenson Button felt that Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc would get along very well. He did, however, caution his former teammate that the young driver could make life very hard for him on the team. He said:
“I think if it was the Lewis of seven or eight years ago, it would be a tricky relationship. But now he just seems so relaxed in himself and I don’t think they’re going to have issues being team-mates at all, no more than Carlos [Sainz] and Charles have right now."
He added:
“Do I think they’ll work well together? Yes. I think the positives that Charles has is that he knows the team, speaks Italian. If he wanted to, he could make it really, really difficult for Lewis in that team, the atmosphere. And you can say: ‘That’s not sportsmanlike’ – but that’s part of racing."
Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari will be the next chapter for the driver. It will be interesting to see what direction it takes as the Brit is close to the end of his career.
