Adorning a million boyhood bedroom walls and a matching number of garages of older racing fans across the world, is a poster teasing a rear shot of Gilles Villeneuve at an impossible angle over a trackside curb, flanked by the words of Il Commendatore reads: ‘What’s behind you doesn’t matter.’
It’s stirring stuff that crystalises the heroism, enchantment and sheer iconography of wringing a steed crafted by motorsport’s most revered team in its zenith echelon. Except that, owing to its legacy, driving for Ferrari inescapably invites conversations – and comparisons – with its glorious gallery of ghosts.
For Lewis Hamilton, whose 2025 arrival at the Scuderia was announced on 1 February, over time and in the wake of several previous overtures, that gravitational pull became irresistible.
