Lewis Hamilton made his first global appearance as a Ferrari driver as Formula 1 launched its 2025 season with a glitzy, ground-breaking show at London’s O2 Arena.

Hamilton, whose first laps in a Ferrari were watched at the team’s test track by a few hundred fans in Italy last month, was the star attraction during the two-hour show on Tuesday, and received the biggest cheers.

But many of the drivers drew huge reactions from the 15,000 crowd at the event, tickets for which sold out in 20 minutes last year.

“Good evening everyone,” Hamilton said as the crowd celebrated him and their first sight of the seven-time champion in Ferrari’s red overalls.

“Such a great night to be here among all of you. The word I am thinking about is ‘invigorated’. I feel so full of life, because everything is new. Just focused on what’s ahead. I am so excited to be part of the team.”

Host Jack Whitehall, meanwhile, joked about what it must have felt like for Mercedes to see their former champion walking out for their rivals.

Hamilton became the most successful driver in F1 history racing for the Silver Arrows. Now, he is turning out for the biggest, most celebrated, most historic name in the sport, in a partnership that has created a huge buzz already, with the season still just under a month away.

“It’s everyone’s worst nightmare,” Whitehall said. “Your partner of 10 years running off with an Italian stallion.”

Hamilton, team-mate Charles Leclerc and Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur flew back to Italy straight after the show, to prepare for the official launch of Ferrari’s 2025 car in Maranello on Wednesday. As with the other teams, the car on stage was a show car in this year’s paint job, not the machine that will contest this championship.

But Hamilton, who has gone to Ferrari with the aim of securing a record-breaking eighth title, was far from the only driver feeling the love of the audience.

The most popular names were no surprise – Leclerc, Hamilton’s fellow Briton Lando Norris, his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri, Aston Martin’s veteran legend Fernando Alonso, Carlos Sainz, now at Williams, and Mercedes’ George Russell all raised the roof.

Leclerc faced the biggest ribbing from comedian Whitehall, who took every opportunity to make a joke about the Monaco native’s good looks.

And there was a dash of irreverence. Norris even used a naughty word as a jokey insult during a good-natured exchange with Whitehall. One trusts FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem, whose crusade against bad language is regarded as ill-conceived and poorly handled by most in F1, will decide not to pursue it on this occasion.

Certainly celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, who has a commercial deal with the sport, will think so. “If it comes out, it comes out,” Ramsay said as he was interviewed in the VIP area about the topic. “Let them be real.”

Ben Sulayem would certainly be wise not to sour the good taste left by an event that appears to have been a resounding success.

In among the well-choreographed but also genuine celebrations of a new season, though, there was one ‘gulp’ moment, when Christian Horner was booed loudly as he came out on stage to host during his Red Bull team’s presentation.

Anyone wondering whether that was directed at Horner personally or the team found out the answer shortly afterwards when the cheers for four-time champion Max Verstappen drowned out a few boos.

F1 had pulled out all the stops for this event, the first of its kind. It was nominally held to mark the 75th anniversary of the World Championship, but one imagines F1 owners Liberty Media may well be pushing for a repeat after this.

The attendance of all 10 teams and 20 drivers was required, and while some were more willing participants than others – Verstappen, in particular, was known not to be a fan – all were on their best behaviour, during the seven hours of media build-up to the event at a next-door hotel, and during the show itself.

Rock musician Machine Gun Kelly opened the show, and Take That closed it; there were other acts during it.

Whitehall was a warm and witty host, poking fun at the “beef” between George Russell and Verstappen – “how can anyone have a beef with George?” he said. “He’s the nicest guy in the world.”

Everything went off with an almost military precision, each team using their seven-minute allocation during the evening for their own unique style of presentation.

Many in F1 had questioned what the show was for, but on the evidence of the night, that was obvious.

A normal pre-season is marked by a drip-feed of individual launches by the teams. Some garner more attention than others, but none attract the sort of worldwide attention this event seems to have drawn – the audience on F1’s YouTube channel peaked at 1.1m concurrent viewers, and totalled 4.6m across the live broadcast.

“This is a new milestone, such an amazing event,” Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff said.

The presentations were done in reverse order of last year’s constructors’ championship, so the last team to do their presentation were McLaren.

“It’s a pleasure to be here tonight,” Norris said. “We’re all excited. A lot of hard work and today it starts.”

The last word spoken by a competitor on the evening went to his ultimate boss, McLaren Racing chief executive officer Zak Brown. He judged it perfectly.

“We never stop racing,” Brown said. “Let’s go.”