Ferrari's capture of Lewis Hamilton makes them a 'more attractive' team to join for the likes of Adrian Newey, according to former F1 driver Ivan Capelli.
The F1 offseason had been a quiet affair up until Hamilton's shock news that he would be leaving Mercedes ahead of the 2025 season for Ferrari.
It's the kind of transfer that will shake up the entire grid in F1 in one of the biggest moves in recent history.
As a seven-time world champion, Hamilton will bring a wealth of experience to the iconic Italian F1 team alongside Charles Leclerc.
Lewis Hamilton will join Ferrari next year
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Capelli feels Ferrari will not only benefit from Hamilton's extreme talents on the track, but also by being a more attractive proposition for some of the sport's best technical minds.
Red Bull chief Newey has been a long-term target for Ferrari, but they've been unable to lure him away from Christian Horner's side.
With Hamilton now making the switch to Ferrari in 2025, Capelli suggests Newey would consider following in the Briton's footsteps.
And the Italian went on to claim that was Ferrari's ulterior motive in snapping up Hamilton.
“Hamilton has an enormous wealth of experience, he can make an important contribution to Ferrari,” Capelli told AutoSprint.
“He can provide different rhythms and visions for future planning.
“He alone will not distort performance, because he drives the car and does not design it, however, it could open up future horizons for some engineers who until now have not considered a job at Ferrari.
“Seeing Hamilton join Ferrari makes the team more attractive also for the technicians, and above all I say Newey, because in any case we are witnessing a seven-time world champion arriving in Maranello giving the idea that there is a future projected towards something different.
“Beyond marketing and the return on the commercial level, I believe this is precisely the additional value of Hamilton to Ferrari, I believe this is the focal point of this arrival.”
Adrian Newey has long been linked to Ferrari
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Newey has been credited as one of the most influential designers in F1 over the past few decades.
He's helped Red Bull establish themselves at the top of the sport and designed the extremely dominant RB19 that won all but one race last year.
Newey has been working his magic at Red Bull once again in trying to build something similarly dominant with the RB20, which was officially launched earlier this week.
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Adrian Newey has spent nearly two decades with Red Bull
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But the design guru steered clear from making any early predictions on whether Red Bull will be way out in front again when the season starts in March.
"We know roughly what we've done from the shakedown at Silverstone, it seems to have - from what we can tell - behaved as we expected it to," Newey said.
"But that's no guarantee of anything. It could be that some other team has done a bigger jump than us, we shall have to see."
