Lewis Hamilton's stunning Ferrari F1 switch explained
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Published 2024-02-01
Hamilton only signed a new two-year Mercedes deal last summer, that was meant to cover 2024 and 2025. Which is one of many reasons this is such a big surprise.
But it turns out that new contract included a release clause for 2025 that Hamilton has chosen to activate before even driving the 2024 Mercedes in reality.
We didn’t see this coming and Mercedes didn’t either, based on the hurried meeting that was held at Brackley on Thursday afternoon to inform staff.
0:00 Hamilton's shock Ferrari move
2:51 Why Ferrari?
4:55 A gut punch for Mercedes
6:32 Who will replace Hamilton?
9:14 The consequences at Ferrari
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All Comments (21)
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2024 is just a filler episode before 2025 now 😭
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Hamilton: “My tires are done.” Ferrari: “We are checking.”
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2026: Toto wolff replaces fred vasssuer as the team principal of Ferrari.😂😂😂
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Carlos Saintz is like "why is no one talking about me? I am being replaced out of blue".
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Waiting for Bono to announce he’ll be signing with Ferrari for 2025 😂
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George Russell is already working on a "Moving forward with George" PowerPoint presentation to calm Toto down.
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It’s so funny to see that one pic of Hamilton sitting in the 2024 car and then this getting announced
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Time for Hakkinen to end his sabbatical.
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I feel like this is more a decision based on where he wants to finish his career and motivating himself with a fresh challenge, rather than a vote of no confidence in Mercedes. But we shall see.
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The radio conversations are going to be the absolute best. Lewis vs Ferrari strategy team.
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This is being so over analyzed. Two years ago, before he re-upped with Mercedes, I was positive he would move to Ferrari. It took a little longer, but it happened. It's a simple as Lewis Hamilton, who is very much an image focused athlete (fashion, marketing, etc.), wanting to have a run with the most iconic name in F1 before calling it quits. It's about Ferrari, it's place in racing history, not a referendum on Mercedes. He could have pulled an Alonso and do something like he did to Alpine, but he gave Mercedes a full year to prepare. If he was unhappy with Toto, Mercedes, didn't like George, etc he wouldn't, nearing age 40, give another full year of his career to the team before making the switch. He spent the entire prime of his career with Mercedes, won more titles for them than any driver has for any team in history, and gave them a full year's notice before finishing the end of his career with the sports most famous name, but is "selfish and ruthless." Ok.
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I doubt this has anything at all to do with the strength of the Merc vs the Ferrari. It comes down to ‘every driver wants to be a Ferrari driver’ at some point. He only has a few years left (most likely), so now would be the time.
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Andretti being denied entry into F1 is the biggest off season story. Ferrai/Hamilton: Hold my beer.
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Toto Wolf's therapist will overheat.
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This is an interesting referendum on the Vasseur model of change management.
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Seeing the grid driver contracts expiring at end of this season, could have a mad scramble to get into the vacated seat /240205
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"Everyone is a Ferrari fan. Even if you say youre not, you're a Ferrari fan." - Sebastian Vettel
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My take is simply that Lewis will retire in 3 years or so and he just wanted to drive a Ferrari to end his career. He's talked about the fact that everyone wants to drive a Ferrari and it would be a miss if he didn't get a chance. Now Ferrari is no worse than Mercedes so it's a perfect change to fulfill everything he wanted from F1
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Probably Merc didn't change the car the way he wanted for 2024. Just my guess but I wouldn't be surprised
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Not a sniff of a race win for over 2 years. Close to retirement. This seems like the ideal move.
