Lewis Hamilton is reunited with key ally as he starts life at Ferrari determined to reignite his career

Lewis Hamilton’s most trusted aid Angela Cullen is back at his side after two years, as he made his first visit to Ferrari’s Maranello factory yesterday.

Mail Sport can reveal that the 50-year-old New Zealand physio, whom he described as ‘one of the best things that has happened to me in my life’ is staying in Fiorano, down the road from the Scuderia’s front gates.

Cullen, a bubbly character, accompanied Hamilton through four of his six world championship successes at Mercedes, and was his chief confidante and assistant. She was regularly seen bunching his hair or carrying his umbrella on the grid.

The pair were also inseparable during Covid lockdown when members of the travelling F1 community were forbidden from seeing anyone outside their ‘bubbles’ of two or three people.

So it was a shock when they parted company early in the 2023 season, for reasons unknown.

Her reappearance in Italy indicates that Hamilton is searching for every spark he can to reignite his career as he embarks on his final hurrah at Ferrari, aged 40.

Hamilton once said of Cullen, a mother of two: ‘She’s the single hardest-working woman that I get to be around.

‘She’s focused, selfless and makes my weekends peaceful.

‘Every day I wake up, whatever time it is, she’s just positive. Never a single day has she been negative. That’s very important.’

Hamilton arrived yesterday at the factory doors (without Cullen apparently in attendance) in the dark of morning promising a ‘new era in the history of this iconic team’.

He met key figures including his new race engineer Riccardo Adami, who stays in post after fulfilled the same role for Hamilton’s predecessor Carlos Sainz.

Hamilton posed outside founder Enzo Ferrari’s trackside office for his official unveiling picture, dressed in a black suit and an overcoat worn like a cape.