(Motorsport-Total.com) – Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton feels comfortable wearing a T-shirt with seven stars in honor of Michael Schumacher at the 2026 Italian Grand Prix in Monza (follow all sessions here in the Formula 1 live ticker!). “That’s quite fitting because I also have seven stars,” said Hamilton.
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The seven stars represent seven world championship titles each for Schumacher and Hamilton in Formula 1: Schumacher became world champion in 1994 and 1995 for Benetton and from 2000 to 2004 for Ferrari. Hamilton won his titles in 2008 for McLaren and in 2014, 2015, and from 2017 to 2020 for Mercedes. (Retrieve more statistics in the Formula 1 database!)
The Ferrari special design on the occasion of Schumacher’s first home win for Ferrari in Monza in 1996 therefore feels explicitly “good” to Hamilton. Even more: “It feels a bit like it’s also my livery.”
The Ferrari special design evokes memories for Hamilton
In any case, the tribute to Schumacher evokes memories for Hamilton: “It’s kind of crazy. I grew up with him. I always just remember seeing Michael in that red car. I also remember playing computer games where Michael was always in that Ferrari.”
Ferrari shows special design in honor of Michael Schumacher
However, Hamilton has made different statements about this in the past: Although he repeatedly said he always chose Schumacher in the Ferrari, elsewhere he also stated that his choice was “always” Kimi Räikkönen in the McLaren. Hamilton said this, for example, on the occasion of Räikkönen’s Formula 1 farewell.
Presumably, in both cases, he wanted to emulate these drivers. Hamilton confirmed this now with his statements in Monza when he said about Schumacher: “I tried to imagine what it would feel like to be in his place. And today I have the privilege to experience that myself.”
Together with Michael Schumacher on the track
Because now Hamilton drives for the team with which Schumacher achieved his greatest successes – a sporting legacy that still resonates not only in Maranello today. Hamilton also gets enthusiastic: “Michael was a true leader and achieved extraordinary things throughout his career.”
Michael Schumacher: The Ferrari years
“I had the privilege to race in Formula 1 at a time when he was still active and to be on the track together with him. That meant a lot to me.”
How much influence does a Formula 1 driver really have?
But Hamilton also emphasized: Formula 1 is a team sport. “Ultimately, it’s about the collaboration of many people. There is no ‘I’ in the team.” A driver can be a leading figure but cannot single-handedly turn around an entire Formula 1 team – as Schumacher is often credited with at Ferrari.
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“You can imagine it like a huge ship,” explained Hamilton. “The driver’s task is to work together with the leaders to steer this ship in the right direction.”
“The positive thing, the opportunity with a new driver with experience who has already been with two different teams, is that he comes from outside. When you are in the middle of it yourself, sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees.”
What fascinates Hamilton about modern Formula 1
“When someone new joins, people immediately say: ‘Oh, we did it differently.’ That doesn’t necessarily mean that this other method is better. They are just different approaches.”
That is exactly what makes Formula 1 unique, said Hamilton: All eleven teams work under the same regulations but develop different technical solutions. “In the end, they all come to roughly the same result when the cars are within a tenth of a second on the track. That is quite extraordinary.”
How Hamilton contributes to Ferrari’s development
He has already influenced some of these technical solutions at Ferrari, Hamilton explained further: “I pushed for many changes to the car that we couldn’t implement last year. So it took quite a bit of persuasion to get some of these changes through. Some of them were also expensive and required a longer development process.”
Therefore, the decision was made to first test Hamilton’s proposals virtually in the simulator. This already happened during Hamilton’s first Ferrari season in 2025. “Afterwards, they were adopted as options for the car and are now available to us at every race weekend,” said Hamilton.
The much-cited “outside perspective” has thus helped him to initiate changes at Ferrari. “And when I see the progress we’ve made, it makes me proud.”
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