The time is approaching: Lewis Hamilton will soon put on the red jumpsuit for the first time in his career and take the wheel of a car struck by the Prancing Horse! The Briton should experience his first laps on the track aboard a Ferrari in the coming days, on January 21 and 22 on the private track of Fiorano, very close to the factory Maranello… if the weather conditions allow it (rain is forecast for Monday and Tuesday in Maranello). However, don’t expect the seven-time world champion to take the wheel of the 24 SF-2024, and even less of the future Ferrari for the 2025 season!
Indeed, in order to prepare the English driver for the Scuderia's specific procedures and give him a first feel for the track aboard a Ferrari, the Italian team will have its new driver drive old single-seaters as part of a "Testing of Previous Cars" or "TPC" program. Private tests supervised by the FIA in the Sporting Regulations and which allow teams to benefit from driving time - outside of the tests organized and authorized by the F1 with current cars (winter testing, post-season testing, Pirelli tests, promotional filming, etc.) – with single-seaters entered a few seasons ago.
What is TPC?
Concretely, what does this famous "Testing of Previous Cars" consist of, which Lewis Hamilton will benefit from to acclimatize to the Scuderia Ferrari before the first winter tests in Bahrain (February 26-28)? According to the official definition of the FIA, as written in the 2025 Sporting Regulations of Formula 1, a TPC "is defined as any track time, not forming part of a competition, in which a competitor registered in the championship participates (…) using cars which have been designed and constructed to comply with the Technical Regulations of one of the three calendar years immediately preceding the calendar year preceding the year of the championship."
More explicitly, the TPC allows teams to run a single-seater dating back at least two years, and at most five years. That is to say that in 2025, all teams will be able to run their 2021, 2022 and 2023 single-seaters within the framework of the TPC. Ferrari will therefore be authorized to place Lewis Hamilton in its 23 SF-2023 or in its 1 F75-2022, the first two single-seaters of the Scuderia meeting the ground effect single-seater regulations introduced in 2022.
Be careful though: within the framework of the TPC, teams must drive "only with cars built to the specifications of the period. The cars must only use components and software whose specification has been used in at least one competition of a championship season during the period mentioned", i.e. between 2021 and 2023. No evolution is permitted on these old models, unless it concerns “reasons of cost, reliability, safety, lack of availability or runway conditions”, modifications which must first be validated by the FIA.
New restrictions in 2025
In 2025, new guidelines were added to the Sporting Regulations to regulate and limit these TPCs, which are increasingly popular with teams. From this year, teams can only use one car per day, over nine-hour days from 9:00 a.m. to 19:00 p.m. TPCs are now restricted to 20 days per year, with a limit of 1000 kilometres over four days for regular drivers, while reserve or development drivers do not have a specific mileage limit to respect.
Finally, the TPCs must be held on FIA Grade 1 circuits with a ban on driving on circuits on the calendar for 60 days before the event is held on that circuit. Ferrari will run Lewis Hamilton at Fiorano – an FIA Grade 1 homologated circuit, even though it will never host Formula 1 – on January 20-21, and then in Barcelona before the end of January, more than five months before the Spanish Grand Prix (May 30 – June 1), so the Scuderia is well and truly in compliance.
Please note that TPCs should not be confused with TCCs ('Testing of Current Cars'), which concern single-seaters from the current or previous season, nor with THCs ('Testing of Historic Cars') concerning all cars designed more than five years ago. For example, at Jerez on Wednesday, Andrea Kimi Antonelli drove a Mercedes W11 of 2020 – meeting the old technical regulations – under a THC program, not TPC, in order to keep TPC days available during the season.
Ferrari accustomed to the fact
Lewis Hamilton will not be the first world champion to discover driving an old Ferrari on the Fiorano track for his first drive with the Scuderia. Ten years earlier, during the winter of 2014-2015, Sebastian Vettel had also had the opportunity to drive the Ferrari F2012 of 2012 on the private circuit of Fiorano in order to acclimatize to the Italian team before his big debut in red, in 2015.
Before Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, when private testing was much less regulated and limited than today, Ferrari did not hesitate to have its new drivers drive on its track when they were available. That's the advantage of having your own track a few hundred meters from your facilities! A luxury that only Ferrari can boast of having.
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Yves-Henri RANDIER
19/01/2025 at 03:29 a.m.
A way for Sir Lewis to discover Fiorano, test some Ferrari procedures and prove his Italian with his mechanics!