LONDON-. Lewis Hamilton surprised Mercedes boss Toto Wolff by announcing during a breakfast that he would leave his team to join Ferrari, but that “there is no bad blood” between them, Wolff himself said on Friday.
Wolff acknowledged that he heard rumors that Hamilton might leave the team, but wasn’t sure until the driver himself confirmed it during a breakfast meeting Wednesday at Wolff’s home in Oxford, England.
Hamilton will leave Mercedes at the end of next season to join Ferrari in 2025 following Thursday’s announcement. Hamilton has been a part of Mercedes since 2013 and won six of his seven titles with the team.
“The surprise was that I heard the rumors a couple of days before, but I wanted to wait until that breakfast that we had scheduled and it was on Wednesday morning, that’s when he told me the news,” Wolff commented.
“But you know, you can be direct with me because I’m direct too. So when she said, ‘That’s what I’m trying to be,’ it was a fact. “I didn’t try to convince him to change his mind.”
Wolff added that he still considers Hamilton a friend. “In the future we will discuss whether or not this could have happened differently, but there are no hard feelings.”
This is a look at the surprise within the Mercedes team, Wolff commented that Peter Bonnington, the race engineer who has worked for a long time with Hamilton and who is known as “Bono”, responded: “Is it April Fool’s Day? ” when he was told that Hamilton would be leaving.
In late August Hamilton finalized a two-year contract extension, but activated a buyout clause that allows him to leave the team after one year.
Wolff acknowledged that the fact that Hamilton is looking for a new challenge is not a surprise, but the timing is. He suggested Hamilton is possibly “rolling the dice” as the 39-year-old looks for another chance to win his eighth title.
“We knew that signing a short-term contract could benefit both parties. We couldn’t commit long term and he decided to take the option to leave. “We completely respect that you can change your mind, they are different circumstances,” he said.
Mercedes will now be able to take its time deciding who will be George Russell’s new partner for next year, Wolff added. He compared this moment to Nico Rosberg’s sudden departure and retirement in 2016 after winning the title.
“I have always liked change, because change gives you opportunity and it is the same way in which we received Nico’s situation,” he commented. “And that also happened from one moment to the next, unexpectedly.”
Hamilton has not won a race since 2021, when he controversially lost the title to Verstappen in the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi. Mercedes struggled to adapt to changes in car aerodynamics in 2022 and Russell’s victory that year in Brazil is the team’s only victory since. In 2026 — the second year of Hamilton’s multi-year deal with Ferrari — they will begin implementing new rules that they believe will impact the grid.
Hamilton had been linked to Mercedes almost all his life, since he signed with McLaren at the age of 13 as a karting champion. Mercedes supplied McLaren with engines during the McLaren-Mercedes program to develop young drivers.
Source: AP
