Someone’s keen… Hamilton racks up more testing miles for Ferrari

Usually ‘pictures of F1 driver driving an F1 car’ isn’t in itself news, but we’re now in Week Two of the Lewis Hamilton Goes to Ferrari saga and the frenzy of interest shows no sign of slowing up.

It all began with that Maranello shot – An F40! A nice jacket! Seven windows for seven world titles! – swiftly followed by a first glimpse of the 40-year-old in the famous red overalls.

Then came footage of his first rollout at Fiorano, and now here we are – baying for a snapshot of number 44 and that soon-to-be iconic yellow lid belting around Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Hamilton of course has never been a huge fan of F1 testing: typically teams will run to a strict plan that involves lap after lap after lap several seconds below qualifying or even race pace. Boring.

But he has a completely new car now, which means a new engine, a new steering wheel, a new radio button position to bemoan the state of the tyres … and not a lot of time to learn it all before the new season begins in March.

So he’s getting as much seat time as he can, sharing duties with new teammate Charles Leclerc in 2023's SF-23. And it sounds like he must be giving it some because on his second day of running, reports say he's... had a crash. Woopsie.

If we see him putting in a 12-hour shift in the sim next week, we’ll know just how badly he wants that eighth title…