Lewis Hamilton is effectively a lame duck at Mercedes. That’s after he informed the team in the winter that he’d be joining rivals Ferrari for the 2025 season.
Hamilton signed a two-year extension last summer but the second year of that agreement was optional. The 39-year-old was therefore entitled to accept the seismic offer from the Scuderia.
Team principal Toto Wolff said he wasn’t surprised by the decision itself, simply by the timing. After all, the Englishman had chosen to abandon a legendary partnership before a wheel was turned in 2024.
Between 2014 and 2020, Mercedes delivered six titles for Hamilton. That’s the most for any driver/team combination in F1 history.
What’s more, 82 of his 103 victories have come while racing for the Silver Arrows. He’d started out at McLaren before making the move to Brackley at the end of 2012.
But since the start of 2022, Hamilton has endured the longest victory drought of his career following Mercedes’ regression. And he may have seen this season’s woes coming.
The team have failed to score a top-four finish at any of the first five races this year for the first time since 2011. Individually, Hamilton has endured his poorest-ever start to a campaign, but Wolff says he remains in surprisingly good spirits.
What is the current relationship between Toto Wolff and Lewis Hamilton?
According to FUnoAnalisiTecnica, Wolff no longer feels ‘a debt of gratitude’ towards Hamilton after he chose to jump ship. His historic achievements in their colours are an increasingly distant memory.
In the eyes of the Austrian, the seven-time world champion has abandoned his ‘home’ by leaving Mercedes. It’s a move that’s left him with an ‘open wound’.
There’s also some ill-feeling on Hamilton’s side too. He’s ‘tired’ of waiting for ‘technical answers’ from Wolff and the rest of the Mercedes hierarchy.
He offered a glimpse of his best form at the Chinese Grand Prix when he finished second in the sprint race. But a costly mistake in qualifying saw him start 18th, and he could only manage ninth.
Toto Wolff in spat with Christian Horner after Chinese Grand Prix
Wolff needs to find a replacement for Hamilton and his top choice seems to be world champion Max Verstappen. Verstappen is enjoying perhaps the greatest dominance the sport has ever seen at the moment, though, so has little obvious reason to leave.
Indeed, Red Bull expect him to honour a contract that runs until 2028. A frustrated Christian Horner has told Wolff to stop sniffing round Verstappen after public expressions of interest.
If he can’t land the three-time title-winner, then he could take a gamble on academy starlet Andrea Kimi Antonelli. But his former driver Nico Rosberg has warned him that it may be too early.
Filling the hole left by F1’s most successful driver is a tenure-defining task for Wolff. It remains to be seen whether relations with Hamilton remain outwardly cordial if he’s on the opposing side in a future title race.
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