Andrea Stella says his McLaren team will do their talking on track as he responded to Lewis Hamilton's public unveiling at rivals Ferrari. McLaren got the last laugh over their Italian rivals in 2024 by beating them to the constructors' championship title. They went into the final race of the year both in contention but a Lando Norris victory in Abu Dhabi got the job done for the Woking-based outfit.

Ferrari hope to go one better this time around having recruited Hamilton to race alongside Charles Leclerc. And all the attention was certainly on Maranello last month as Hamilton enjoyed his first few days with his new colleagues and a well-publicised test drive at their Fiorano track. Like the rest of the F1 paddock, McLaren team principal Stella couldn't help but see all the photos and clips of Hamilton being given a hero's welcome in Italy. And as a former Ferrari employee himself, he admitted to getting carried away by it all.

"Observing from a distance I can say that I think the way it is, at least for how this has been reported, it was a great introduction, of Lewis to Ferrari," said Stella. "To be honest, as a fan of Formula 1, by having been 15 years at Ferrari before I felt excited myself. "To see something that is historic for Formula 1, a seven-time world champion going to Ferrari, one of the most iconic teams. I think Ferrari and Hamilton handled this very well.".

While Ferrari have already greatly benefitted from Hamilton's presence, the most important thing will be performance when the new season gets under way in March. And Stella was keen to remind his former team of that fact as he pledged to make life as tough as possible for Ferrari and their new star racer. He added: "But ultimately I'm sure they know very well what counts is what's happening on track. After the initial excitement, I'm sure they will very much focus on making sure that the preparation is good and on our side we'll try to make their life a little bit difficult.".

Following that first outing at Fiorano, Hamilton travelled with his Ferrari colleagues to Barcelona for a three-day testing session. It was while in Spain that he suffered his first crash in red, losing control of the SF-23 he was driving and smashing into a barrier which caused extensive damage to the car and led to team-mate Leclerc missing out on the chance to drive that day. Hamilton is due to drive again this week, though. Ferrari remain in Barcelona where they are set to take part in a Pirelli tyre test on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the seven-time champions set to get behind the wheel of a modified version of their 2024 car to simulate expected downforce levels of F1's new generation of racing machines from the 2026 season onwards.