Lewis Hamilton on his 2026 Ferrari: “That’s not red enough for me”

This was a topic that had the loyal Tifosi in a right tizzy 18 months ago: in 2025, Lewis Hamilton’s first year with the team, Ferrari would be racing in a deeper shade of red than in previous years. This sent Ferrari fans’ social media into a frenzy, and everyone was wondering – just what shade of red would the Scuderia be racing in? Because when it comes to Ferrari, not all reds are created equal.

The best example was served up to the astonished fans at Mugello in 2020, when the proud racing team lined up for the 1,000th Formula 1 World Championship race. Back then, Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc took to the track in a shade of red so dark that some fans described it as burgundy.

In reality, it was the shade known as ‘Rosso Barchetta’ – the colour used in the late 1940s on many Barchetta models, such as the 125 S. Ferrari also competed in this shade of red at its Formula 1 World Championship debut in Monaco.

Later in the 1950 season, Ferrari made a change, fielding race cars in a slightly lighter shade of red.

Back to Lewis Hamilton. After his first Grand Prix victory in Barcelona, he said of his team car: “I remember sitting at home on the sofa in front of the telly, with a plate on my lap, and all I could see was that red car, and I thought to myself: ‘I wonder what it’s like to sit in that red cockpit?’”

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“My cockpit just happens to be white this year, which I’m not very happy about. I wanted to drive in red, like Michael Schumacher used to. I’ll get it in red at some point.”

Ferrari: On red and other colours

Time and again, the Italians turn up with modified liveries on their racing cars. Take Monza 2023, for example: Ferrari returned to Le Mans in June 2023, after a 50-year absence as a works team. The Italians promptly won the endurance classic for the tenth time, their first victory since 1965. James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi triumphed in the Ferrari 499P Hypercar.

To mark the occasion, Ferrari’s Formula 1 team appeared at its home race in Monza in September with a specially liveried GP car for Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.

As early as 2022, numerous yellow design elements could be seen on the Monegasque and Spanish drivers’ cars, as a way of thanking Ferrari’s home town of Modena after 75 years. Yellow, the colour of Modena, can also be seen as the background on the world-famous Ferrari emblem.

The livery on Leclerc and Sainz’s cars at Monza in 2023 was inspired by the dynamic livery of the Hypercar, featuring on the flanks, the nose and the engine cover. Leclerc’s number 16 and Sainz’s number 55 were also yellow.

To complement this, there were special overalls for the drivers, Ferrari lettering in the classic style and special helmets – yellow for Leclerc, black for Sainz.

Take Miami 2024, for example: that’s when Ferrari went blue. No, it wasn’t that the Italians had skipped the Grand Prix in Florida; rather, they used their appearance in the US to add an interesting splash of colour – the former Ferrari colours Azzurro La Plata (a light blue) and Azzurro Dino (a darker blue) were brought back.

This was to celebrate the arrival of their new main sponsor, HP, as well as 70 years of Ferrari in the US.

Azzurro La Plata harks back to the shade that Ferrari star Alberto Ascari used to wear in the 1950s. And the racing suits worn by Clay Regazzoni and Niki Lauda at Ferrari in 1974 were in Azzurro Dino; indeed, most of the mechanics at the time wore blue rather than red.

Exactly how the blue elements were incorporated into the design of the Ferrari SF-24 was then revealed a few days before the Miami Grand Prix. This special livery was only seen in Florida, not at the other US races in Austin and Las Vegas.

A slightly different Ferrari look in the US is nothing new: at the end of 2023, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz raced in red and white in Las Vegas, drawing inspiration from earlier Ferrari designs.

The white section around the cockpit of Hamilton and Leclerc’s cars in 2026 is reminiscent of the legendary white air intake on the Ferraris driven by Niki Lauda and Clay Regazzoni in 1975.