Official: Lewis Hamilton joins Ferrari in 2025
The driver move of the decade is imminent. Hamilton's headed to Maranello
What on Earth is going on in the world of Formula 1? We appear to have landed in an alternate universe where Guenther Steiner will no longer be on our TV screens, F1 no longer wants an 11th team after years of rule tweaks aimed at enticing more in, and the most successful driver of all time is leaving the team that’s taken him to six of his seven championships. Now it’s official: Lewis Hamilton will leave Mercedes to join Ferrari in 2025.
In what must be the biggest driver announcement since Hamilton’s shock decision to leave McLaren for Mercedes in 2012, the seven-time world champ has clearly had enough of the rubbish cars his once mighty team has churned out the last two seasons and has decided now’s the time to sign for a team he swore he’d never join. And with Charles Leclerc having recently signed a major contract extension with Ferrari, it would leave Carlos Sainz Jr without seat. For now, at least.
Announcing the move, Hamilton said: “I have had an amazing 11 years with this team and I'm so proud of what we have achieved together. Mercedes has been part of my life since I was 13 years old. It's a place where I have grown up, so making the decision to leave was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make. But the time is right for me to take this step and I'm excited to be taking on a new challenge. I will be forever grateful for the incredible support of my Mercedes family, especially Toto for his friendship and leadership and I want to finish on a high together. I am 100 per cent committed to delivering the best performance I can this season and making my last year with the Silver Arrows, one to remember.”
And breathe. Didn’t have Hamilton joining Ferrari on your 2024 F1 bingo card, did you? To be fair, the signs have been there for a while now. The Ferrari boss John Elkann has made no secret of his admiration of the Mercedes driver (for now, anyway), while Hamilton has coyly admitted on numerous occasions that there’s an appeal to racing in red - only to then immediately dismiss the thought and reiterate his allegiance to Mercedes. Evidently, he’s had a change of heart.
The thought of Sir Lewis racing for Ferrari seems completely alien, frankly, but the Scuderia has undergone a major shake-up over the last 12 months and is now a different animal. As you may know, the team is now run by Frederic Vassuer, the former ART team principal who helped Hamilton secure the GP2 title in 2006 and the man hoping to go down as the next Jean Todt.
Admittedly, Vassuer hasn’t had the most convincing start at Ferrari. He replaced Mattia Binotto as team principal for the 2023, barely scraping a win a year after the team was consistently at the sharp end. Dig a little deeper, though, and it’s clear that he inherited a lemon of a car and helped steer the team back to its winning ways at the Singapore Grand Prix. Mercedes, meanwhile, has endured false dawn after false dawn since the new ground effect cars were introduced in 2022, and although it’s due to release a radically different W15 in just two weeks, the news is hardly a vote of confidence in the team’s ability to get back to the front. Yikes.
Let’s not forget, either, that Hamilton, by F1 standards, is getting on a bit. He’ll be 40 in 2025, and while Fernando Alonso has proved the oldies still have what it takes to be competitive, both can see retirement on the horizon. That doesn’t give Hamilton many years left to get back the 2021 championship Max Verstappen clinched in such controversial circumstances, so you can forgive him for wanting to get behind the wheel of something faster as soon as possible. Besides, we all called him mad when he jumped from a competitive McLaren to an uncompetitive Mercedes for 2013, and look how that turned out.
The move also raises a heap of questions. Who will take Hamilton’s seat at Mercedes? Will Hamilton’s race engineer, Pete ‘Bono, my tyres are gone’ Bonnington, follow him to Maranello? Are the rumours that Ferrari has its mojo back true? Where will Sainz go? And given that Hamilton has supposedly been in the Mercedes simulator all week, does it suggest the new W15 is a complete wheelbarrow?
What’s a dead cert, though, is this has comfortably the most exciting Formula 1 has been since that humdinger of a season finale in Abu Dhabi 2021. Here’s hoping that we see Sir Lewis back where he belongs: battling with Verstappen, Leclerc and (hopefully) Alonso for the title. Bring on 2025!
Always weird when you know your going to another job, so you..er...take your foot off the gas of the current one. He wont wanna p
s off Ferrari with any risky moves endangering their cars next year eitherOh and Mercedes are gonna loose a s
t load of merch income, many are Lewis fans first
I saw it suggested on twitter that Lewis felt aligned with Merc Performance Director Loic Serra on the question of car philosophy (seating position, underfloor approach etc). Serra signing for Ferrari last summer to start in '25 may have been a factor in Lewis deciding to do the same.
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/ferrari-capture...
It'll be fascinating to see how Leclerc v Hamilton in the same team shakes out.
I’ve never really all that much warmed to LH - nothing against him, at all, but I like someone with a bit more edge.
I think he will do well at Ferrari - can only imagine the ‘special’ road cars he will get…!! That’s a guaranteed fortune what ever happens & what ever he is gonna get paid, one hell of a perk - right there…!
Mixing it up a bit is good for the grid too…
‘Go Lewis’ - I guess..??!!
I reckon the fezza could have the pace to worry MVS - in the right hands, let’s see :-))
Would have liked to have seen Andretti in there with Caddy, but alas - the F1 marketing mafia is stroooong….!
Sadly cheated out of one title but carried on in a team which is struggling.
He said many years ago he had a desire to drive for Ferrari one day so maybe this will be it.
He is already up there with the greats of F1 and needs to prove nothing.
The whole F1 circus has a huge carbon footprint as do quite a few exotic sports.
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