Lewis Hamilton will finally make his long-anticipated Ferrari debut at Sunday's Australian Grand Prix.
Formula 1's biggest global superstar, in the colours of its most iconic and mythologised team: it sounds like a match made in racing heaven. Hamilton's arrival in Maranello has been met with a wave of excitement in Italy, where Ferrari is more than a team; it's a national institution, almost akin to religion.
A victory straight out of the gate would send the hype into overdrive, and history suggests it's not an outlandish possibility. Some of Ferrari's greatest drivers have done just that.
Juan Manuel Fangio (and Luigi Musso) | 1956
One of F1's most iconic drivers, Fangio won five world titles with four teams -- including Ferrari. There were some parallels to Fangio's move to Ferrari in 1956 with Hamilton's this year, in that both joined from Mercedes.
Fangio's entry here comes with a quirk of racing in that era. He led early in his debut, at his home race in Argentina, but his car suffered mechanical issues at mid distance. In those days, car swaps were permitted and were commonplace when involving a team's lead driver. Fangio was the undisputed leader, so he took over Musso's car and went on to win the race, meaning that Fangio and Musso -- who was also making his Ferrari debut after moving from Maserati -- shared the victory in the record books.
It would be Musso's only grand prix victory. Fangio went on to win the title, before moving again in 1957 and winning his fifth and final championship with Maserati.
Giancarlo Baghetti | 1961
One of the quirks of the F1 history books, Baghetti has precisely one victory to his name: the 1961 French Grand Prix, in a privately run Ferrari 156, back in the day when there was not a fixed entry list. There has to be an asterisk here; as an independent participant, Baghetti was racing for Federazione Italiana Scuderie Automobilistiche (FISA), but the car that crossed the line just 0.1 second ahead of American Dan Gurney's Lotus was still a Ferrari.
Only Giuseppe "Nino" Farina, who won the first ever world championship race in 1950, and Johnnie Parsons, who won the Indy 500 when it was included on the season schedule, can boast an F1 series win on their debut. Baghetti never came close to winning another race.
Mario Andretti | 1971
Speaking of American drivers, few are as famous as Andretti. The Italian-American announced his arrival on the F1 scene with Italy's most famous team, winning the 1971 South African Grand Prix at Kyalami. There was a slice of fortune about it, with race leader Denny Hulme's engine failing in the closing laps, but the career that followed was no fluke. It was the first victory in an F1 career that culminated with the 1978 championship with Lotus.
Nigel Mansell | 1989
Birmingham's favourite son gave the best example of how an instant win with Ferrari can earn you legendary status from Day 1. Mansell, who could proudly boast to be the last driver hand picked by Enzo Ferrari before his death, stormed to a win at the 1989 Brazilian Grand Prix at the Jacarepagu circuit in the iconic John Barnard-designed Ferrari 640.
Mansell's famous dogged, take-no-prisoners approach to racing, which often left the car looking like it was being driven on the ragged edge, earned him immediate respect from the tifosi. Mansell was quickly dubbed "Il Leone" ("The Lion") for the way he drove his Ferrari.
His debut win was also a significant moment in F1 history, the first race win in a car featuring a semi-automatic gearbox. The 640 was as innovative as it was unreliable, and it had plenty of unrealised potential; Mansell failed to finish seven times that season, but every time he did, he was on the podium.
Mansell was joined by Alain Prost the following year -- the Frenchman would win his second race -- and was quickly overshadowed. Both drivers bitterly split from Ferrari and went on to win championships in the early 1990s with the dominant Williams team. One of the great Ferrari "what could have been" stories.
Kimi Rikknen | 2007
The last man to win a drivers' championship in a Ferrari, Rikknen kicked off his maiden season in fine style. Not daunted by the pressure of replacing Michael Schumacher, who retired at the end of 2006, "The Iceman" won the Australian Grand Prix, beating reigning world champion Fernando Alonso and the Spaniard's new teammate, young Hamilton himself. The escalating internal drama at McLaren between Alonso and the rookie Hamilton would open the door for Rikknen to snatch the title away at the final race of the season in Brazil.
Rikknen raced for Ferrari until leaving at the end of 2009, only to return in 2014. Rikknen was far less successful in his second stint - returning in 2014, he would have to wait until the 2018 U.S. Grand Prix to taste victory in red again. Hamilton will be hoping to emulate the Finn's first stint.
Fernando Alonso | 2010
Ferrari's last first-time winner had opposite fortunes to Rikknen. After two years in the wilderness back at Renault, Alonso stormed back to title contention with Ferrari. He set the tone for the season to come with an impressive victory at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Replacing a former world champion in Rikknen, Alonso seemed to be starting a new title-winning era in red. It wasn't to be as desert circuits would not be so kind to Ferrari later that year. Arriving at the Abu Dhabi finale with the championship lead over Red Bull pair Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel, Alonso's title chances slipped away after Ferrari made a calamitous strategy call that handed the title to the latter. Alonso would never manage to get over the line with the Italian marque.
What about Michael Schumacher?
Ferrari's most iconic driver had to wait until his seventh race for his first win, but he got it done in his first season. Schumacher's drive to victory in the pouring rain at the 1996 Spanish Grand Prix -- where he regularly lapped upwards of three seconds quicker than the next-quickest car -- might well be the finest of his 91 wins, and it was the first of many in red. Ferrari had suffered a brutal few years in the early- and mid 1990s, but Schumacher's arrival was the beginning of better days. After heartbreak in the title deciders of 1997 and 1998 -- and a broken leg in 1999 -- Schumacher finally won his first Ferrari title in 2000, the first of five in a row.
Does everyone win in their debut season?
Not everyone gets it done immediately, but most Ferrari drivers of the modern era have managed it in their first year driving the red cars. Vettel did it in his second race with the team, his memorable win at the 2015 Malaysian Grand Prix. Rubens Barrichello won in his 11th race for Ferrari, the 2000 German Grand Prix, while Charles Leclerc had to wait until race No. 13, winning the Belgian Grand Prix in 2019, before winning at Monza for good measure the following weekend. Felipe Massa's first win for Ferrari came 14 races into his 2006 debut season.
The only driver of the current millennium who did not win in his Ferrari debut season is Carlos Sainz. The Spaniard had the misfortune of having that landmark campaign on the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, which saw Ferrari tumble down the competitive order after the very secretive settlement it came to with the FIA after entering an engine in 2019 that many rivals felt was illegal. Ferrari did not win a single race in 2020 or 2021, but did so in 2022, when Sainz was able to claim his first F1 win at the British Grand Prix.
So no pressure, Lewis, but if history is anything to go by, the bar has been set sky high.
