Irvine told Sky Sports F1<\/a>. \u201cBecause of that, Rory Byrne came, Ross [Brawn] came, and that whole team was built around the fact that Michael was another world.<\/p>\n\u201cA bit like Verstappen is now, where if Verstappen went somewhere, he could take a lot of people. Without the whole system together, everyone\u2019s, you know, at the same level. It\u2019s tough, Formula 1\u2019s tough.<\/p>\n
\u201cMichael gave up a lot, like Michael probably gave up two, three, maybe even more world championships to leave Benetton to go [to Ferrari]. Because the first few years, people have no idea how bad it was at Ferrari.<\/p>\n
\u201cMichael, he knew there was no point for him. He was so much better than everyone else. He just decided, \u2018I\u2019m going to go there. I\u2019m going to see what I can do,\u2019 which was amazing.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he got there. But people forget, it took four years. He was always in the vicinity, but it was just that you could see he was driving the wheels off the thing to try and be there. So, it was very easy for it not to happen.”<\/p>\n
Irvine: Hamilton left the move ‘too late’ in his career![\"Lewis](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/01k4zq7cqn53wynm2vhh.jpg\" "\\"Lewis")
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May 4, 2025; Miami Gardens, FL, USA; Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton (44) leaves the Ferrari garage before the F1 Miami Grand Prix at Miami International Autodrome. Mandatory Credit: Peter Casey-Imagn Images | Peter Casey-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
Every driver dreams of representing Ferrari at some point in their career, but Irvine acknowledged that Lewis Hamilton\u2019s move in 2025 might come too late to have the impact he\u2019s hoping for.<\/p>\n
Hamilton is now 40 and clearly nearing the end of his career, while Verstappen is just 27, the age Schumacher was when he took the bold leap to Maranello.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would love Verstappen to come to Ferrari,” Irvine added.<\/p>\n
“I think the two of them together would be sensational. I hope he doesn\u2019t leave it too late like Lewis did.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Latest Formula 1 News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reigning Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen produced a dominant victory at the recent Italian Grand Prix, winning by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,372,6537,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-136118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Max](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/01k4zqe0f86ha7fd3473.jpg\" "\\"Max")
<\/p>\n