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- Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari stint started strong, then faded mid-season in 2025.
- Off-track, he’s stacked major deals: Lululemon and Richard Mille watches.
- He has revealed a dream project: designing a Ferrari road car called the “F44”.
- The idea is an F40-inspired successor with a proper manual stick shift.
- Ferrari hasn’t confirmed anything, but the concept would be huge if it were real.
Lewis Hamilton has exceptional taste, and while his time driving for Ferrari hasn’t been the most exciting, he’s letting his creative ideas fly. The seven-time Formula 1 champion joined the team ahead of the 2025 season and made an early impact by claiming points at the Melbourne Grand Prix and winning the sprint race at the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai. However, his pace fell off in the mid-season.
The British driver signed a deal to become the face of lululemon, he’s wearing $1+ million Richard Mille watches (as part of his Ferrari deal). Still, his lasting memory at Ferrari might be designing a Ferrari road car that he wants to call the “F44,” as a tribute to the legendary F40.
During the 2025 Australian Grand Prix, Hamilton told Motorsport.com that it was his dream to create a road car. “One of the things I really want to do is I want to design a Ferrari. I want to do an F44,” he told the publication. “Baseline of an F40, with the actual stick shift. That’s what I’m gonna work on for the next few years.” If Hamilton were to pull this off, it would surely have to be in the next 12 months as his contract with Ferrari ends after the 2026 season, with an option to extend to 2027 or even 2028.
Built in the late 1980s, the Ferrari F40 is often considered the greatest road car ever created and was the last car approved by Enzo Ferrari, who died shortly after production in 1988.
If Lewis Hamilton were to design the successor to the Ferrari F40 (with a manual transmission), it would mark the first time a manual transmission had been added to a Ferrari road car since 2012.
The brand has made it clear that quick-shifting “F1-style” gearboxes are the way of the now and the future. However, bespoke, low-production manual transmission hypercars are currently in high demand, and brands like Pagani and Gordon Murray Automotive (GMA) have successfully established businesses around selling these limited-edition vehicles.
Ferrari has capitalised on this theory with the release of the 1100 hp twin-turbo, hybrid V6-powered F80, a successor to the LaFerrari. However, as it’s a production vehicle, it’s bound by strict European emissions restrictions. We explained this in detail, and this is another factor that Lewis and Ferrari would have to navigate if they were to create this Ferrari F44 (named after his 44 race number).
Whether Ferrari plans to build this car is purely speculation at this point, as his comments to Motorsport.com do not specifically mention whether Ferrari is on board with the idea.
If it were to come to fruition, however, it would become one of the most exciting releases from Maranello in years. It would certainly provide an alternative to cars like Pagani, GMA, and even some of Aston Martin’s special releases.
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