Lewis Hamilton Is Barred From Practicing In Old Ferraris

Formula One superstar Lewis Hamilton has been barred from driving Scuderia Ferrari HP’s older cars anymore. After crashing a Ferrari SF-23 last month, Hamilton now has to cool his heels as far as time on the track, waiting until he can get behind the wheel of the new 2025 racecar.

Learn why Lewis Hamilton switched to Scuderia Ferrari.

Thanks to new F1 Testing of Previous Car (TPC) regulations Ferrari and other teams pushed for last year, Hamilton is essentially relegated to simulators only. That’s because the rules state a driver can only log 1,000 km of TPC over a maximum of four days.

Hamilton crashed the SF-23 on his second day of TPC in January. While waiting for the SF-23 repairs, the team had Hamilton do a tire test for Pirelli in a modified SF-24, using up his third day of TPC.

Once the badly damaged car was finally repaired, the British F1 driver could only get behind the wheel for one more day.

Meanwhile, teammate Charles Leclerc wasn’t able to get any time in the SF-23 on the day of the crash, so he still was able to log two full days of testing once the vehicle was ready to go again. He also participated in the tire testing for Pirelli.

We’ll see what kind of impact this development has on Lewis Hamilton’s preparation for the start of the F1 season.

While Ferrari blew off the Hamilton crash after it happened, behaving like it was just part of the process of dialing in its newest star, we wonder how the team feels now behind closed doors. Are they still confident Lewis Hamilton is going to come out swinging in the first race of the season, or is there a sense of growing trepidation about things?

Image via Scuderia Ferrari HP/Facebook