Ferrari has modified the cockpit position of its car for the 2025 F1 season as the team prepares to welcome new signing Lewis Hamilton from Mercedes.

It comes after Hamilton complained that the cockpit of his Mercedes was too close to the front wheels in his penultimate season with the team in 2023.

Hamilton, who turns 40 next week, has officially joined Ferrari following the end of his contract with Mercedes on December 31.

The seven-time world champion announced last February that he had signed a multi-year deal to move to Ferrari, having been part of the most successful team/driver partnership in F1 history at Mercedes.

Hamilton claimed six of his seven world championships with his former team, as well as becoming the first driver in F1 history to surpass 100 grand prix wins and pole positions after joining Mercedes from McLaren in 2013.

The British driver’s decision to leave Mercedes came less than six months after he signed a two-year contract extension with the team, having triggered a release clause to force a move to Ferrari for F1 in 2025.

It came after Hamilton endured back-to-back winless seasons for the first time in his career in 2022/23 as Mercedes struggled to adapt to ground-effect regulations.

Despite returning to winning ways in F1 2024 with victories in Britain and Belgium, last season proved equally challenging for Hamilton, who struggled to match teammate George Russell in qualifying conditions.

Having been outpaced by Russell in 19 of the 2024 races, Hamilton admitted he is “not quick anymore” in the final weeks of the season.

Hamilton’s move to Ferrari is widely believed to rejuvenate the seven-time world champion, with high hopes pinned on Ferrari’s 2025 F1 car, codenamed Project 677, after the team narrowly missed out on last year’s Constructors’ title.

Fred Vasseur, the Ferrari team principal who oversaw Hamilton’s title-winning GP2 season in 2006, recently confirmed that Project 677 will be a “completely new” car for the final season of the current regulations and the team will go all out to win its first World Championship since 2008.

Meanwhile, it emerged on Tuesday that Project 677 has passed mandatory FIA crash tests for F1 2025, a key milestone ahead of the car’s official launch on February 19.

And now it has been claimed that the car’s seating position has been adjusted in a way that is likely to please Hamilton.

The Italian edition of Motorsport.com reports “unconfirmed rumours” that the car’s cockpit has been moved “further back” compared to last year’s SF-24 to improve weight distribution, which in turn should help tyre management.

If true, this would appear to be consistent with persistent rumours since last summer that Ferrari has been planning a revised wheelbase (the distance between the front and rear wheels) for F1 2025.

Generally, a shorter wheelbase results in a more agile car, which is often an advantage on tighter circuits such as Monaco, Hungary and Singapore.

Meanwhile, a long wheelbase car tends to produce more downforce and excels on more conventional circuits, where the additional surface area generates a greater aerodynamic benefit.

It is unclear whether Hamilton has had any direct influence on the rumoured switch, with the cockpit position proving a major irritation for the seven-time world champion during his penultimate season with Mercedes in 2023.

Speaking at that year’s Australian Grand Prix, Hamilton mentioned the uncomfortable feeling of sitting too close to the front wheels, and revealed that he would have interfered if he had known how it would feel.

He said: “We sit closer to the front wheels than all the other drivers. Our cockpit is too close to the front.

“When you drive, you feel like you are sitting on the front wheels, which is one of the worst feelings you can feel when driving a car.

“If you were driving your car at home and you put the wheels right under your legs, you wouldn’t be happy when you approached the roundabout.

“It really changes the attitude of the car and how you perceive its movement and makes it harder to predict compared to when you are further back and sitting closer, more in the center.

“It’s something I’ve really struggled with.”

“I listened to the team and that was the direction they said we should take. If I had known the feeling I would have in that, it wouldn’t have happened.

“And this has to change in the future, 100 percent.”

The reported change to the cockpit position is the latest Project 677 design detail to emerge since last summer, with the return to a pull-rod front suspension for the first time since 2015 arguably the most significant.

A pull-rod front suspension, favoured by the likes of McLaren and Red Bull, is thought to improve airflow to the car’s complex underbody, with the floor generating a significant proportion of the car’s overall downforce under current ground effect regulations.

The move to a pull-rod front suspension is said to have been directly influenced by Hamilton’s arrival, with his driving style closer to that of new teammate Charles Leclerc than predecessor Carlos Sainz.

Ferrari will also retain its divisive pull-rod rear suspension design despite the departure of former technical director Enrico Cardile for the 2024 F1 season.

Ferrari and customer team Haas are the only two teams still racing with a pull-rod rear suspension, with all their rivals opting for a pushrod design.

Ferrari is understood to view the pull-rod rear suspension as a key factor behind the 2024 car’s impressive tyre management.

Cardile, who has joined from Aston Martin, claimed Ferrari found no significant performance differences between the pull-rod and push-rod rear suspension layout when asked by media including PlanetF1.com at the launch of the SF-24 in February.

A revised wheelbase and gearbox tweaks will also be included in the Project 677.

Development of the 2025 F1 car is being led by former Mercedes engineer Loic Serra, who was appointed to the role of chassis technical director ahead of his arrival at Ferrari in October, having initially been contracted to work with Cardile.

Serra is understood to be close to Hamilton, having shared the driver’s reservations about the failed zero-pod design concept pursued by Mercedes under former technical director Mike Elliott during 2022/23.