Lewis Hamilton shocked the world by announcing he would leave Mercedes after ten years as a works driver and nearly three decades having some links with Mercedes. The move to Ferrari for 2025 caught us all by surprise, he only last summer signed a new multi-year contract with Mercedes last summer but while the rumours have always been there, I think that no one thought that the seven-time champion would ever join Ferrari.
Ferrari has always drawn the big names, Hamilton himself has been linked to Ferrari several times in his career, but speaking in 2021 he said he was unsure why a ‘dream’ Ferrari move never materialised. Those comments were made during a bitter fight for the championship with Max Verstappen at the time Ferrari was in a difficult place and was rebuilding following the controversy at the start of 2020, but forgotten about because of the pandemic, when Ferrari lost performance following an agreement with the FIA over engine performance. That saw Ferrari cast into the wilderness until the 2022 regulation change.
Ferrari’s history and draw as the sports biggest, longest-serving serving and most successful team in the sport has always drawn the biggest names and always will. But Hamilton we all believed would be with Mercedes for life, a twenty-five-year relationship in various forms would end after Abu Dhabi. Hamilton may not be the current world champion, but he is still the biggest star having transcended the sport given his interests in equality and diversity, fashion, music, environment and his charity work. He may not have won a title since 2020, but he is still is the superstar he is.
Speaking to Sky Sports Italy at Monza in 2021, seven-time champion Hamilton said “it’s definitely going to be crazy to think that I never drove for Ferrari. Of course, I look at the colour and the red, it’s just… it’s still the red. I have a couple of Ferraris at home, so I do get to drive a Ferrari, just not the one!”
Reflecting back on 2021, I didn’t think that three years later as he will be forty when he joins Ferrari, would be looking at him looking to continue his F1 career possibly into a third decade in 2027 this deal is understood to be multi-year. Hamilton hasn’t won a race since Jeddah 2021, but I think he can still win he looks to be fired up again after 2022.
There are also reports that part of this move is about his retirement plans, not that I think that’s coming in the short term. It’s reported that Mercedes wasn’t offering him a long-term ambassadorial and projects role when he does retire which Ferrari was prepared and has offered him, we understand, and I feel in recent years Hamilton has reached a compromise between his main job in F1 and his various other projects.
Hamilton may be in the latter part of his career, but I believe that he can win races and titles, he is statically the greatest of all time I don’t think he has lost that special something which puts him up there with Juan Manwell Fangio, Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, Max Verstappen I think isn’t quiet on that list yet given he hasn’t been through a difficult spell after winning a championship.
This feels also a bit like Valentino Rossi’s move from Yamaha to Ducati in 2010, a seven-time champion leaving a team where he had so much success for an Italian team. Again, a move in my early days in motorsport shocked me and we have to off track as well be prepared for “anything can happen in motor racing and it usually does,” as Murray Walker said.
Senna’s move from McLaren to Williams and Schumacher’s from Benetton to Ferrari were seismic as they were both, at the time, the only active champions in the sport. Schumacher’s was even more so as he moved from the title-winning team to one in the midst of a rebuild. Hamilton’s own move from McLaren to Mercedes was huge news, but although highly regarded he was, at the time, only a one-time title winner.
Look how that played out, we were all shocked by the move to Mercedes back in 2013, but between 2014 and 2021, seven drivers and eight constructors with Hamilton winning six of them only being beaten by Nico Rosberg in 2016. This is the most successful driver in the history of the sport moving to the most successful team in the history of the sport, Schumacher was only a two-time champion when he joined Ferrari in 1996 his five titles would come between 2000 and 2004.
Nearly all the multiple champions end up at Ferrari, Fangio, Lauda, Prost, Schumacher, Alonso, Vettel and now Hamilton. Timing is both unsurprising but not, it does feel like a breaking of a twenty-five-year marriage and as Hamilton said on X (Twitter) over the weekend “I feel incredibly fortunate, after achieving things with Mercedes that I could only have dreamed of as a kid, that I now have the chance to fulfil another childhood dream – driving in Ferrari red. Mercedes has been a huge part of my life since I was 13 years old, so this decision has been the hardest I’ve ever had to make.”
“I’m incredibly proud of all that we’ve achieved together and I’m very grateful for the hard work and dedication of everyone I have worked with over the years and of course Toto [Wolff, team principal], for his friendship, guidance and leadership. Together we have won titles, broken records and become the most successful Driver-Team partnership in F1 history.”
Thinking back to how this developed, the first hints came on Wednesday when rumours of something big, started swirling on X (Twitter) you always take that with caution, then as the story grew and more and more media started to report on it, I started to think this has legs to it. But that evening when we finally got confirmation it was still a pinch yourself moment as to ask is this real, its 1st of February not 1st of April?
But looking back and research it looks in hindsight as if Ferrari were less committed to Sainz, but he has got his wish in a way but not what he wanted, his future with Ferrari is resolved by the start of the season. I think that despite being ‘sacked’ this is different he is thirty and can build a career, maybe go back to partner Max Verstappen again this time at Red Bull.
Mercedes, it appears were as surprised by this as we all were, they are lucky its happened this early they can take their time to decide what to do next? Toto Wolff has suggested ‘doing something bold’ for 2025. Could they perhaps bring in a rookie, however says that it does not want to “spin” junior driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s mind by bigging up his chances.
While there is little doubt that Antonelli has what it takes to eventually make the jump to F1, the key consideration for Mercedes will be whether or not he could do it with the German manufacturer as a starting point.
On Monday, Wolff said, “I think most important at this stage is that he concentrates on F2. I think if we start to spin his mind or unleash rumours in the media on to him, that’s not going to help his F2 campaign. He’s just stepped out of karts a few years ago, and he’s not even eighteen. So I would rather not start any speculation about Kimi going into F1 at this stage.”
The big question is do they look internally, perhaps Mick Schumacher? that would be a story as Hamilton replaced Michael back in 2013, Mick coming back would be a story and we know Mercedes said when signing him last year, ‘was to rebuild his career.’ I think we didn’t see the potential of Schumacher given he only had two years and never the car to find himself as a driver.
Hamilton is hard to replace, he is the team’s leader while not being disrespectful to Russell, this is his sixth season in the sport and he has never had in his F1 career a car capable of fighting for championships so he might need to lose one to gain one. I have always thought that Hamilton would end his career at Mercedes, but we all need to make a change sometime.
Ferrari, I think is hoping that Hamilton, who is the most successful driver statistically, can use his experience to lead them back to championship winning ways. I had seen on social media ‘Oh Ferrari has only signed Hamilton to stop him from passing Schumacher,’ to me, that feels very against the DNA of both Ferrari and Hamilton. The seven-time champion may still feel robbed and want to put right his controversial title loss in Abu Dhabi 2021.
Also, it’s hard to think Ferrari’s last drivers champion was in 2007, Hamilton could be an eight-time champion, if Kimi Raikkonen hadn’t beat him by one point. The Englishman to me from the latter part of 2022 onwards seems hungry to put right the misses in 2007 and 2021, the stand out ones, 2010 he was the one with an outside chance. He could have had multiple titles before going to Mercedes he has been in title fights for most of his career.
Hamilton if he gets momentum, in the same way as Max Verstappen, Vettel, Schumacher, we know he can be a winning machine again. I think while his age could slow reaction down, he is as sharp as ever we all I think want Hamilton and Ferrari to be a success that fact is there, we have seen it as he had a good season last year off the back of a tough 2022.
The other thing is how does Charles Leclerc matches up against Hamilton? Leclerc is and for a while been regarded as one of the best drivers at the moment but this is another step, you can see flashes of the brilliant driver he can be I wonder if some of the reasons for bringing him in were, to see how he matches against Hamilton, to help him develop into the team leader, and to rebuild the team back into a championship winning team.
I think that Charles, though no driver wants to this play the long game step into the number two role and be a strong number two, getting himself into a good position to be the successor to Hamilton when he does retire. I am not being disrespectful to Leclerc and believe he has the ability to be world champion, but his career could be badly impacted if he doesn’t match Hamilton.
Russell has a huge opportunity here, he is the senior driver from 2025 at Mercedes and that gives him the opportunity going into 2026 when the regulation change to build the team around him. As we saw at Williams, teams always gravitate to the best drivers, that could be happening over the next season.
He knows what it is like to have to build a team he started that at Williams, and I think he has a long future with Mercedes if the team are able to show him they are able to win championships. Mercedes will want to avoid the fifteen years in the wilderness like Ferrari and McLaren are in where they haven’t been able to fight for championships
