Ferrari merchandise sales have jumped nearly 400 per cent off the back of Lewis Hamilton’s move to Maranello for the 2025 Formula 1 season.

Data shared with City AM demonstrates the huge global appeal the seven-time world champion enjoys with F1 fans.

In the days following Ferrari’s 2025 season launch earlier this month, Ferrari merchandise sales were up almost 400 per cent compared with the team’s 2024 launch across the Fanatics network of retailers, which includes the official Formula 1 Store.

Ferrari merchandise on the F1 store ranges from £35, for a cap, to £162 for a softshell jacket.

Hamilton was first seen in public donning Ferrari red at Formula 1’s 75th anniversary show at the O2 Arena last week, having previously posed outside Enzo Ferrari’s house for a welcome post on Ferrari’s Instagram account.

Ferrari game changer

It has already become the most engaged Formula 1 post ever on Instagram, overtaking a post by Hamilton’s new teammate Charles Leclerc on the Monza podium.

“The impact of Lewis’s arrival and the growth on social has been like nothing we’ve seen before for a long time in F1,” said James Campbell, co-founder of marketing agency 50 Sport.

“Very often in sport now, an announcement or arrival will be a last-minute scramble and/or dominated by carefully worded scripts. Too often story-telling is neglected and here, the message and visual style were perfectly aligned and consistent from day one onwards.”

The post, with Hamilton flanked by a historic Ferrari and donning a double-breasted suit and trench coat, now has 5.7m likes. Hamilton’s total of 39.1m followers is more than double that of the Ferrari Formula 1 account.

“This showed in the numbers seen online,” Campbell says. “Towards the end of January it was the most talked about sporting moment in the world, with engagements, video views and followers increasing 3x from the same time the year before. 

“In fact the first post featuring Lewis at Ferrari’s HQ is the most engaged post in Formula 1 history on Instagram. Some fans speculated the creativity got so wild that the image shown reflects seven windows and a door open waiting for the possibility of an eighth title.

“Whether this was genius creativity or a coincidence, the art direction was hugely influential in the impact it had.”