LONDON (Reuters) - Lewis Hamilton winning a record eighth Formula One title in the red overalls of Ferrari at the age of 40 would be a story straight out of Hollywood, whose own Brad Pitt movie is scheduled to race across cinema screens in June.
The Briton, a co-producer on the film directed by Joseph Kosinski of "Top Gun: Maverick" fame, has fired up the fans as he seeks to bring a championship to Maranello for the first time since 2008.
Sunday's season-opener in Melbourne will be Hamilton's first race for the Italian glamour team, after winning his seven titles with McLaren and Mercedes, and already the level of excitement is off the scale.
One fan cut down a tree to get a better glimpse of the 105-times race winner driving for the first time at Ferrari's Fiorano test track.
An Instagram post on his first day at the factory, with Hamilton standing in a smart black suit and overcoat next to a Ferrari F40 car, drew 5.7 million likes from 39 million followers.
"Oh my God, he’d be the king of all kings," 1978 world champion Mario Andretti told Time magazine when asked about the chance of the Briton succeeding in what seems to some an improbable quest.
Hamilton was featured on the iconic red-bordered cover, standing shirtless in a white suit in front of a rearing black stallion.
"The old man is a state of mind," he told the magazine, a line he could have taken from Pitt, 61, who plays a 40-something driver. "Of course, your body ages. But I’m never going to be an old man."
The fairy-tale script is written, but it could easily be torn up and recast.
TOUGH TASK
The task, to secure a title he felt robbed of when a controversial change to the safety car procedure late in the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix handed Red Bull's Max Verstappen a first title, will be as tough as any Hamilton has faced.
Teammate Charles Leclerc, a Ferrari protege and eight-times race winner who has driven for the team since 2019 and been blisteringly quick over a single lap, will fancy his chances if the car has title potential.
McLaren are the reigning constructors' champions and Hamilton's compatriot Lando Norris, runner-up to Verstappen last season with four wins, is installed as the bookmakers' favourite.
Australian Oscar Piastri, Norris's teammate, is another contender in what could be one of the closest seasons ever as well as the last before major rule changes and the start of a new engine era in 2026.
Some are predicting potentially more winners than the seven different drivers and four teams that enjoyed the spoils in 2024, with some teams set to end development early and focus on next year.
Then there is Verstappen, soon to become a father for the first time and bidding to join Ferrari great and seven-times world champion Michael Schumacher as only the second driver to win five titles in a row.
"If the car's up to it, he'll get the job done," former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone told Reuters.
Verstappen, who has led the championship for more than 1,000 days since May 2022, has a new teammate in New Zealander Liam Lawson, promoted after 11 races from sister team Racing Bulls to replace under-performing Mexican Sergio Perez.
Lawson is the most experienced of a group of six starting a season for the first time, with Frenchman Isack Hadjar taking the vacated seat at Racing Bulls.
Briton Oliver Bearman is at Haas, Brazilian F2 champion Gabriel Bortoleto with Sauber, Australian Jack Doohan at Alpine and Italian Andrea Kimi Antonelli stepping into Hamilton's enormous shoes at Mercedes.
How the 18-year-old fares alongside George Russell will be another storyline of the season, as will star designer Adrian Newey's impact at Aston Martin since his move from Red Bull.
For the first time since 1989 there is no Finn on the grid, with Valtteri Bottas now Mercedes reserve, but Bortoleto ensures Brazil has a full-time driver for the first time since Felipe Massa retired in 2017.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ed Osmond)
