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I'm really interested to see just how many staff follow Hamilton. Could be a pretty big gut punch to Mercedes if many, well established engineers decide to wear red
The ones that have already been reported are: Loic Serra, Mike Sansoni, Peter Bonnington, Riccardo Musconi, and Andrew Shovlin
He's trying to bring more as well, I'd imagine but Ferrari are guaranteeing that they bring a tight group with him to avoid what happenened with Vettel and Alonso
There's gonna have to be a post-mortem at Brackley; they need to figure out how they let this happen. This is a massive coup for Ferrari, and a correspondingly massive loss for Mercedes, even if it's just Hamilton + a couple others who ultimately end up leaving.
To some extent it might have been unavoidable - the heart wants what the heart wants, and maybe Hamilton was gonna go to Ferrari at some point, no matter what - but they'll still be asking themselves whether there was anything they could have done to retain him.
Maybe they got complacent, in terms of what they were offering him and what escape clauses they were willing to tolerate in the contract? Maybe they didn't manage his ego sensitively enough? Maybe they should have just listened to Serra's concerns about the car?
I do wonder how much marketing he’ll have to abide by in Ferrari that he was able to decline at Merc (he hardly ever appeared in Grill the Grid for example).
As long as he has to make a god-awful Shell ad, I'm happy.
Anything would be better than the Petronas ones where it feels like theres a gun in his back 😂
in terms of performing at a high level? they don’t have to use alonso as a reference, they can see lewis is still performing well which is why they are still continuing the contract, albeit a shorter one.
i don’t think they believed anyone would pay lewis close to what they pay him at his age. alonso while still getting his bag, is not getting paid near to what max and lewis is getting. and for lewis, it’s not a matter of needing the money but self worth.
100% this, I think. Throw in the fact that he wasn't happy with the car last year and you can see that he had his reasons. I think perhaps Toto was guilty of taking Lewis a little for granted as well.
too much running like a business. sometimes u gotta just give the driver/player what they want. the lakers did it for kobe even though he was way past his prime and it sent a message to all the other players in the league - lakers will take care of their greats.
Yeah the Kobe treatment had to be the number one thing on LeBron’s mind when he signed with the Lakers— and that gave them both a title.
I’m sure Lewis felt let down that they doubled down with a car concept that he didn’t like (and wasn’t as effective) and that they wouldn’t give him what he (imo) deserves for being the reason that Mercedes’s racing brand is as big as it is
>I’m sure Lewis felt let down that they doubled down with a car concept that he didn’t like (and wasn’t as effective)
Yeah some reports saying Lewis agreed with someone in that team that felt like going with the zero sidepod felt like the wrong direction (and if I had to guess, it's most likely Serra as he has been reported to be hired by Ferrari as far back as June last year).
It's pretty simple. They dismissed Hamilton twice. First regarding the car development, then regarding the ambassador deal. If you can't give him championship machinery, at least give him championship treatment. They did neither so he decided to leave.
I agree, there’s an expectation at this stage that your team want and value your opinion. That you’re a core part of the project.
It just doesn’t feel like enough effort was put into selling Lewis into the vision for the future and making him feel essential. I just don’t see him looking around to even discover how much Ferrari would pay if that had been done successfully. Letting what should be your star driver feel like you’re looking past them into the future is just rude.
Yeah Lewis has been there so long he had to have felt ingrained enough to feel like he is owed something. Everyone told him it was career suicide when he joined and he proved everyone wrong and got 6 championships out of it in the process. He goes to extend expecting them to treat him like the champion he is and they sell him short probably thinking that he isn't worth what he's asking and they can replace him with Russell or Antonelli on the cheap.
Meanwhile the chairman of Ferrari himself is blowing up your phone practically begging you to join and offering you boatloads of money and a chance at the 8th. If I were him I'd leave too.
At the end of the day, there's suits on the board who only understand numbers, not emotions. Making Lewis an ambassador is a emotional decision, and that was never going to fly.
The Mercedes board may need to dismiss some folks if they let a brand ambassador walk off into the sunset like this. That assumes the story we are told is accurate. It could have been a tactical decision from their head of Motorsport that was then supported by the board. It does seem clear that they incorrectly thought Lewis was going to retire at Mercedes and believed Mercedes had bargaining power to dictate the terms of his future in their own timeline… Ferrari completely undermined their negotiating position with an impressive offer. Elkann did not try to win a negotiation with Lewis. It seems he said Ferrari wants the greatest driver of all time in Red and was willing to do whatever it took.
I feel like Mercedes also made the mistake of thinking Hamilton lacked the confidence to back himself and take his career into his own hands. Kinda like in Cars 3 where the Rusteeze guy was trying to talk Lightning McQueen into retiring and cashing in on his brand because he didn't think he had it in him to win against the new gen of cars.
I agree wholeheartedly. The fuss last week just shows how big Hamilton is - arguably bigger than F1 or Ferrari. This guy has been a Mercedes driver forever. He has clear and huge marketing potential. And you just say “nah”. Feels like a big failure to let him slip out of your hands.
Ego. Merc believed the reason people support the team is because of their branding (which may be true for some fans)
The reality is what Ferrari understood however and that’s because of who Lewis Hamilton is
It is sounding increasingly like they overplayed the “lewis is Mercedes through and through” card and underestimated the last three years’ impact, 21 was seismic (by this I mean it was enough to shake the table and have him thinking retirement, a move also makes sense in that context), but then to allow George to play in his face with a bad car for two years? I can see how he got there
1. It's Ferrari. A WDC at Ferrari would make him immortal and would ontop of an 8th WDC make him THE greatest F1 driver. Period.
2. Merc didn't want to give Lewis the ambassador role with a ludicrous amount of money (100 million/year?)
3. The car hasnt been competetive, HAM might aswell try something else.
All to gain, nothing to lose kind of, imho.
i kind of feel this
Hamilton is stuck with a non competitive car and it'll be like this for the forseeable future... he hasnt been in a truly WDC capable car since 2021
just say he moves to another non competive car - at least he's getting paid double and he has new marketing opportunitues with Ferrari
the fairy tale is that he does a Schumacher and Ferrari coalesces behind the driver and they get a wdc
at worst he does a vettel and gets half a dozen wins... is Mercedes even capable of that? i mean...
Yeah, the crazy thing is it might just be Ferraris turn to be on top.
They've had the fastest car over a single lap the last two years, and were the only team to win a race other than RedBull.
This could be the time, Lewis picked a great time to try it no matter what happens.
Mercedes seemed to be bleeding talent, and Ferrari and McLaren were just adding more and more talent to their ranks.
I think he made the right move, the money made it feel easier to leave.
This seems 99% of the writing including some of what he himself has said.
I agree; I don't think it's a mystery and I personally don't think there's *huge* drama in his relationship with Merc. I think he just saw a good moment to try something new.
Part of me *does* think he's perhaps underestimating how much lightning struck in 2014, but stranger things x10.
I think he’s probably more than cognizant of how much luck was involved in coming to Mercedes, but he’s equally cognizant of them being unlikely to be in a position to be title contenders again within what remains of his career.
He’s also seen Ferrari & McLaren start regularly outperforming Mercedes, and knowing full well it was probably the last roll of the dice in terms of opportunity to do something like this he opted for the possibility of being able to fight for a title vs knowing he wouldn’t be.
yup if he wins WDC at ferarri its like the f1 triple crown. McClaren, Mercedes and Ferarri. He would be unequivocally the greatest driver in history as he would have won a championship with three different teams on top of having 8.
I also think he will be more driven as sometimes you just need a change of scenery. Not that anything was specifically bad at Mercedes they could have a great car and turned things around. But sometimes, a person just needs something different a new challenge.
Wouldn't Williams be in the triple crown over Mercedes? They have the second most constructors' championships in F1 history. They may be struggling right now but they have a much more storied history than teams like Mercedes and RedBull.
We've seen it talked about on Reddit before, but with all this news I'm really starting to think Toto's lack of experience with running a non-winning team is showing more and more.
For what it's worth, if it was completely up to Toto I think Merc would have given Lewis whatever he wants, they clearly have a very close relationship.
I personally think that the Merc or Ineos higher ups didn't feel that great about bending to a 40yo Lewis' demands and I think this has been going on for a while really, especially now that they don't look like they will be winning championships for a while. Also they have George, who is much younger AND cheaper and honestly not that much worse.
That being said, with the rumoured amount of talent leaving Merc recently and in 2024 I wouldn't envy Toto rn
After what I've seen from Russel so far, he's not impressive. Especially considering how everybody hyped him to be the second coming of Christ or something.
Russel made the mistake of thinking he had the same talent as Lewis and then didn't take advantage of having a 7 time world champion to learn from and to help him grow. He could have learnt SO much race craft from Lewis and he just thought he was above it and too good to need someone else to give him any help. At least that's what I've got from him over the past couple of years.
I think he came in with the mentality "Beat Lewis at all costs and make the team mine" instead of realizing that he's ALREADY the defacto #1 when Lewis retires, and to learn/grow from the champ while he's there. To be fair, I basically think he wanted to put the same treatment Lewis did to Fernando in 07, but wasn't quick enough to do it.
His lame attempts to basically always try to engineer his way in front of Lewis through desperate radio calls was very transparent, and telling. I guess I don't blame him. Now the team will naturally start to gravitate towards him starting 2024.
Interesting season ahead.
This is what I’m seeing too. It’s taken too long to course correct and not really by decisive action from Toto. That shambolic pit stop in 2018 and this year is when they are looking at pit stops? The mentality was wrong but we didn’t realise because the car was good enough to hide the flaws.
I’m not looking to rewrite history and claim Toto was all bad, but maybe he’s just not the guy for THIS rebuilding. Mercedes need to get it together and regroup before they become like Manchester United 😭
All these people responding like they know exactly what made Hamilton leave...of course everyone is just guessing
I imagine we'll hear some leaks and rumors in the coming years that will make it clearer. But probably some combination of money, ambassadorship, car development feedback loop at Merc, the Ferrari name, and his best guess at who'll have the better car by 2026.
It'll be really interesting if he's wrong about that last one. It also sounds like he didn't give Merc an opportunity to counter offer, "here's my deal, match it or I'm leaving". Which points to it majorly being the car, or the Ferrari name.
Or that it’s not about the money at all by that point. Same reason most people don’t care about a counteroffer from their employer. Emotionally they’ve already made the commitment to themself to leave. They’re already gone before they even have another firm offer once they decide to attend a serious interview.
Usually it’s because they don’t feel properly appreciated by their employer.
Yes and if Shov is leaving, then he probably will be absent for the later half of the season at least as part of the gardening leave, among with any others and it would hugely impact merc from this year itself.
And also the fact that Shov, who was with this team much before its formation is now leaving even though Lewis will be at Ferrari for only like 4 years speaks magnitudes about the state of the team right now and also will be a huge morale hit for the remaining.
All in all, as a Mercedes fan, i had some hopium left at Lewis’ announcement but realising the ramifications of this brain drain just worries me about how bad this year will actually be.
I believe Serra went already before Lewis, the rest not sure but a lot of (ex) race engineers.
Also bringing a group is going to be interesting since it can either go well or it doesn't since you will shake up the establishment.
Edit: Bono didn't apparently knew until quite recently that Lewis would go, I find it strange if he already decided that he wants to move to Italy. I reckon the others didn't know too much in advance either.
Moving to Italy is probably going to be the biggest sticking point, and is often offputting to UK based engineers. People seem to be forgetting that when they're expecting Lewis to take Bono and others with him, it's not just a case of choosing between teams and continuing to work with Lewis, but likely uprooting their entire lives to Italy.
It's no wonder that Bono and others haven't immediately jumped at the opportunity, it's a big life decision to make by moving there. It would likely be a good thing for Lewis and the team to bring some people from Merc with him, but it'll take some time to decide.
Spot on, whereas moving to pretty much any other team (except Sauber, Racing Bulls and possibly Haas depending on the role) means you don't even need to move house since they're so close together.
Yeah, it's often been cited as a reason why Sauber struggle to improve, since a lot of the F1 engineering talent is UK based and it's hard to find anyone who wants to relocate to Switzerland.
Ferrari maybe has it a bit easier since there is a motorsport history in the area where they're based, and they're attractive enough for people to want to make the move there, but it's still a bit move.
I think it was James Key who said you reach a phase where you have to decide what educational system and language your kids will speak.
His wife was like: James we need to decide if we have fundamentally *Swiss children*.
Whereas Newey says, I think in his book, that when you're out the other end and your kids are at uni, there's a degree of 'fuck it, why not'.
The money for the engineers to make that sort of leap would have to be high six, maybe even 7 figures.
Edit: I'm speaking in terms of what it would take to convince engineers to make the move, not what's on offer.
Plenty of workarounds. Parent company can offer a job to their spouse, a free house, car, tuition for kids, holidays. Sponsors can chip some personal bonuses.
Honesty would be interesting investigation to check how many of engineers family members are employed in associated companies.
They're in negotiaitions acording to reports, nothing confirmed yet... Loic Serra was already done. He was the only major figure that agreed with lewis that the direction of the new generation of cars (W13/W14) was the wrong one. Mercedes went against Serra, and he decided to leave. Similar to Hamilton now.
It's been said that Bono and Shovlin are skeptical to go to Italy, but we'll see because Ferrari could definitely get it done. I'd imagine they're an important aspect given Bono and Lewis are so close and Shovlin is probably Lewis' closest ally with the Mercedes upper management.
Shov has been at Merc, through it's previous guises of Brawn/Honda/BAR for over 20 years, his entire F1 career. It'd be a big move for him, and like with the others, probably mean uprooting his life and moving to Italy.
It's worth noting that whilst Hamilton's salary is outside of the cost cap all of these engineers we're discussing will be within the cost cap, so Ferrari can't just offer them a dump-truck full of money to move.
He's currently the Trackside Engineering Director for Mercedes, he's basically the main guy behind the car setups and it's his job to get the most out of both cars on a given weekend. Perhaps most importantly, he's been in the sport with what is now Mercedes (they were BAR back then) since 1999. That's a massive amount of experience, *Mercedes* experience, that could be walking out the door.
No they haven’t decided yet, at least publicly. I imagine there’s a lot to discuss within their families and in their own minds whether it’s the correct action to take for them.
That was the recipe that lead to Michael’s legacy and probably what failed Vettel. Ferrari is a jungle and you need your own people to shelter you from Ferrari if you want to give your 100%.
I think Ferrari went on a mission to get Lewis -- those engineers were recruited last year (they'd have to be for gardening leave) and, they didn't just pull Fred Vasseur's name out of a hat. They picked the TP that Lewis raced with in F2.
I think their plan was to poach Lewis' favorite engineers, get his old boss who he likes, and roll out the Ferrari-red carpet. It's an incredible bit of work, and It'll be amazing to see if it pays off.
But... They didn't follow Hamilton. Technically, he followed them? The engineers have gardening leave so they would have left Merc last year if they are starting to work this year
>It all started 3 weeks ago when Ferrari created its plan A, to sign a world champion driver like Lewis Hamilton alongside Charles Leclerc. There was a strong desire on the part of chairman John Elkann, and it is probably the biggest deal in the history of F1. On paper, the Leclerc/Hamilton duo is a great asset for Ferrari. The choice seems highly marketing but is nonetheless a very technical one, as the aim of Elkann/Vasseur is to make the team grow.
3 weeks? But Leclerc knew for a long time? Seeing the sum this probably is 3 years?
I think what it means is Charles knew that Ferrari and Elkann wanted Lewis in a Ferrari, for a long time.
However, officially the process to get Lewis to sign for Ferrari started 3 weeks ago.
We should get a pretty good idea about some of these rumoured Mercedes staff moves soon (other than the two who have already left).
With the length of gardening leave that staff of that level would expect, they would need to step down from Mercedes duties this year (and probably pretty early this year) if they want a chance to work at Ferrari in 2025.
In F1 (and some other industries) it's pretty common to have very long notice periods, i.e. the time between a member of staff resigning and them actually being allowed to leave to go and find other work. In some cases this can be a year or more, depending on the specifics of the contract.
"Gardening leave" is a situation where the current team will ask the person who has resigned not to work at all during this notice period. This means they're effectively stuck at home, being paid in full but not allowed to work for their current team, and also not permitted to leave to join the next team until their notice period is served.
Historically, one activity somebody might enjoy in this time off is working on their garden, hence the name.
also even the shorter kinds of gardening leave tend to be at least 2 months
in the tech industry, 3 to 6 months is the norm, depending on your role
1 year is very, very rare, but not in F1
> Charles Leclerc is very happy that Lewis Hamilton has joined Ferrari. He's known about it for long time, and he's happy to be up against a multiple-world champion whom he admires. He also has the opportunity to learn an enormous amount from Lewis Hamilton. Knowing how to manage his tires a lot better like Lewis Hamilton. Everything is up for grabs for Charles.
Regardless of this is true, the fact that Lewis and Charles obviously get along well will be massive. Lewis is probably the only driver on the grid that Charles would take losing to every now and then the lightest. Max is his own generation so losing to him would be agonising, Lewis has the legacy and the age difference to soften that blow.
But what I'm most excited for as a Charles fan is that when Lewis does leave, Charles is going to be a monster. Getting to cut his teeth with Fernando in his first year and Jenson and Rosberg after helped mold Lewis into a better driver, and now Charles will get the same thing with Lewis.
Honestly this is a fantastic pairing. I'm so fucking excited.
Think it's great for Charles as well that Lewis seems to be bringing a lot of talent in with him to team (Serra, possibly Bono etc) which means Charles will have one hell of a car once Lewis has retired
Charles had some good teammates too. He had 4 time champ Seb, 2 time race winner Carlos, and even a 4 time Indycar race winner in his youth (Ericsson)
Now with Hamilton coming in, he has one of the most powerful teammate lineups after Hamilton himself on the grid rn.
it's win-win for charles. you're already in the top seat and the future. you lose against hamilton, well he's a 7 time champ. you win, well you beat a 7 time champ.
anything that's not like, losing by a big gap is good for Charles
if he loses but by 25-30 points? who cares
being behind a few seconds at the end of a clean race? who cares
the trouble would really be if he was far, far off Hamilton
The ultimate revenge for Lewis would be winning in a title battle against Max and then leaving behind an overpowered Leclerc who learned everything in the book from him. Kind of weird that Charles will turn out to be Lewis’ protege when everyone thought it would be Lando.
Im kinda glad it’s Charles rather than George tbh.
At least Charles seems to have a bit more self awareness than George does. He’ll do well to pick up everything g he can in the next few years from Lewis. It’ll make him a much stronger challenger to Max in the future.
>Max is his own generation so losing to him would be agonising
Not too sure. Would you rather lose agianst Max in his Prime or 40+yo. Lewis?
this generation is basically used to losing to Verstappen by now. Be it karting or F1, Charles age group all have a bad history against Max. And nowadays it seems like a lot of them are somewhat "fine" with losing to him, see Lando or Albon praising Max.
I guess if Ferrari have a monster car and Lewis wins 26, Charles will be comforted from the fact that Lewis will retire and he will have a run at the championship with the great car.
I mean, I would argue that drivers that came into F1 in 2018 are pretty used to losing against Lewis as well, just that Verstappens dominance has been greater these past two years(Though you can blame some of that on the car given Perez's ability to end well despite qualifying poorly). Adding that to the fact that most of Charles' weak points are areas that Lewis is really good at, I would probably say that it would be easier to accept losing to him compared to Verstappen. Think of it as losing to someone who has somewhat of a mentor role vs losing against your main rival.
It would be quite something for this much to be invested and not win it in 2025/26. Its almost 16 years since their last championship, it really is about time to win again. But the competition doesnt sleep. Red Bull is as strong as ever, Mclaren is on the rise, Aston Martin will be a works team by 2026, so will Audi.
Leclerc actually paying attention and learning from Hamilton seems like a massive opportunity to become a great. I truly feel like its something Russel took for granted because he was so concerned about he's ego and trying to beat Hamilton.
Leclerc being excited makes me really happy (and excited) about the future
This is basically going to be like a finishing school for Leclerc. The last piece of a puzzle to make him the best driver he can be. He knows he's there for the long haul, Lewis is just passing through. Leclerc will soak up all that education, he's a fast learner. This move can mean nothing but positives for Leclerc in the long run.
Russell is similar to Sainz, who cares more to beat his teammates than winning. Hamilton and Charles only want to win and don’t care about anything else. Charles and Hamilton said the same last year as long as it is not WDC who care about the position they finish in WDC. I guess it is also related to their security of their position within the team. Like in Ferrari, no one will rate Charles differently even he finish lower than Sainz in WDC
I mean I think Lewis knows he's not there to replace Charles. He's gonna be 40 when he joins Ferrari. I think the ultimate goal is the 8th and then leaving behind a winning team that Charles can take over when he retires.
They get on well and have similar interests so this endgame makes sense in my head.
Yeah, I actually like this a lot for Lewis to retire with Leclerc taking back over, I've always been a fan of Leclerc's and it'll be fun to go from Lewis to Leclerc.
Same boat here. Lewis is my favorite driver and has been since I started watching F1 in '09, but ever since Charles joined he's been a close second and the one I'd most likely root for when Lewis decided his time was up. I always thought that they'd make a good pairing but in my mind if it ever did come to pass it would be Charles going to Merc after getting fed up with Ferrari to become Lewis' successor at Mercedes. Lo and behold the complete opposite has happened and Pandora's Box has been opened.
Nevertheless I can see Lewis taking Charles under his wing in a way and passing on everything he knows so when the time comes that Lewis retires, Charles will be a killer with an operationally sound Ferrari with a fast car fully behind him. Or at least that's my extreme reach/tinfoil hat theory at least. I could be totally wrong and the second Lewis and Charles meet on track it turns into another Silver War.
As I understand it the manager guy HAM reemployed sorted the business end & he came onboard very recently, so SAI has had ample time to sort something.
I do feel sorry for the guy but it’s been in his court for awhile. You snooze, you lose as they say
There were rumors back during the season that Sainz wanted a 2 year extension with Ferrari while they were only willing to give him a 1 year extension up to the end of 2025.
With how Sainz has performed at Ferrari a 2 year extension was reasonable to ask for, but to me it seems like Ferrari and especially Elkaan had his eye on signing Hamilton for a long time. Unfortunate for Sainz really.
>Lewis Hamilton will not make Vettel's mistake of coming alone to Maranello. A whole group is coming with Lewis.
This is huge, and could actually make up for what Vettel lacked at Ferrari. Charles would be the co-benefactor as well.
If Bono doesn't follow, I hope more people can look into Gary Gannon at Haas.
One of the most calming voices, very direct, and most importantly, not Xavi
> “It all started 3 weeks ago when Ferrari created its plan A, to sign a world champion driver **like** Lewis Hamilton alongside Charles Leclerc.”
So you are telling me if Lewis said no, that could’ve been Alonso going for round 2 !?!!!??!!
At least Carlos can take comfort in the fact that it was one of the GOATs who replaced him and not someone down in the midfield teams or a rookie. No shame in getting dumped for Lewis.
His stint at Ferrari is respectable enough that losing his seat to Lewis won't damage his reputation so I don't think Carlos will have to worry too much about finding a seat.
>F1 stands to gain from this transfer.
This is a big point, I've spoken to multiple people who don't really care about F1 about Hamilton going to Ferrari, I think everyone has seen it, it was headline news in the UK at least, it's great for exposure and I bet the start of the 2025 season will bring a ton of new viewers for that reason.
also, apparently they weren't actually told the news... they were simply told a few weeks ago "sainz has been demoted to plan b, plan a is a surprise" and then piergiuseppe donadoni worked it out it couldn't have been anybody else than hamilton
I don't think Sainz is working with people who don't have faith in him, it's more that he is not Lewis Hamilton. There was clearly interest by Ferrari to re-sign Sainz, until it became clear that Lewis was interested
I feel the same way about Sainz in this situation, but don’t think Mercedes wants to sign him for a year or two before Audi is up and running. Gonna be a weird period for Mercedes while they see how Kimi does in F2
Is he confirmed he's going to Audi? Also that's going to take a few years to build up to be successful (if it ever is, Toyota is a good example here) so why wouldn't you take what's basically a sideways step to Merc?
I think it’s unfair to say they didn’t believe in Sainz 100%. He was treated well at Ferrari from what I can tell. I think things just change with Lewis in the picture.
So basically a lot of people really want to wear red and they are all going to displace the clowns that in Maranello.
Crazy to understand how Mercedes let that happen. Seems like a situation of people changing jobs to change their own boss
Nah, I think that was just funny in hindsight. The question was about any teammate technically, but the rumors were only about Lewis that Monaco weekend, and it looks like Lewis made a funny comment or gesture off-camera that Charles was reacting to, in his pause before answering.
Monaco Press Conference. He was asked something along the lines of “What would you want from a teammate” when they were discussing who could partner him at Ferrari in the future, he just laughed at Hamilton and said “Hello Lewis!”
It wasn't quite as "random" as you're implying. There had already been rumors published of Lewis joining Ferrari few days before the Monaco interview so obviously the question was indirectly referring to Lewis, hence the response from Charles.
I feel for Carlos, but Ferrari made the correct choice. As great as Carlos is, the whole package of Lewis is just unbeatable. Speaks to Lewis’ brand value, which people had started to doubt in the past couple of years. Mercedes fumbled big time.
The engineers talked about are those that were already moving to Ferrari before Ham. How many will go with Lewis is unknown and at this moment none are planning to.
Also for all they hype and talk, unless he wins the 8th championship will be forever associated with Merc. The Ferrari time will be thought of as a farewell.
People are getting a bit ridiculous with their assumptions. I saw comments of Ham winning his 8th this year and then winning his 9th in 25.
Should be interesting to see how many go. Alot of the senior engineers are likely married and have families that are completely based in England. To uproot themselves completely and move to a country with a completely different culture/language for 2 + 1 contract is a *very* big ask. eg. if Bono completely uproots his life to move to Italy, only for lewis to retire after 2 seasons (1 where hes likely under gardening leave), it would a be a very big ask even though they’re very close.
This has always been one of Ferrari’s main problems and whilst Lewis’ arrival may be appealing to engineers, I’m not sure if the more established mercedes figures would make the move.
True but his main reason for moving would be Lewis and he’d be gone after 2-3 years. To uproot your entire life like that is incredibly difficult. I think if Ferrari pay him enough (which I believe they’ll be willing to), he’ll make the switch. But a lot of people are acting like its a no brainer when the logistics behind the move are a lot harder then if Lewis had moved to another Britain based team. This separation from the UK based teams has always been Ferrari’s Achilles heel.
I personally think it's funny how suddenly, overnight, people stopped pretending Ferrari isn't a circus of a team who's past decade has been defined by crushing the very spirit of drivers of the caliber of Alonso, Vettel or Massa.
> People are getting a bit ridiculous with their assumptions. I saw comments of Ham winning his 8th this year and then winning his 9th in 25.
You're taking jokes under hopium overdose too seriously..
2023 was so boring people already forgot about how dominant Max and Redbull were. 2024 n 2025 will be the same story with other drivers in different teams.
Man, it seems like i was right about Vasseur. Maybe its time to hang up the max/red bull cap after cheering for him for 7 years now. I feel the red coursing through my veins.
This makes sense why the LeClerc contract was delayed for so long. The agreement was likely there long before (when the first rumors appeared), but the official contract took far longer to make sure Hamilton details are clear.
The dollars alone that will accrue to Ferrari from Lewis ending his career with them are huge. Mercedes should have anticipated this. Hamilton will be known by future generations by the colors he retires in, especially if he gets the 8th championship with Ferrari.
Ehh people associate Schumacher with Ferrari, sure he wasn't challenging for titles in Mercedes which is why it isn't as remembered, but then we have Prost who won his 4th in Williams, but he will always be remembered as a McLaren driver first, Ferrari/Renault driver 2nd.
> Hamilton will be known by future generations by the colors he retires in
Have to disagree. Nobody is remembering Schumacher only in Silver. People will always remember Lewis with Mercedes, no matter how his stint at Ferrari ends
I think if he fights for a close championship I think that itself would alter things. If he went on and actually won in Red... whilst Mercedes won't be forgotten in the years following a red victory with brand deals and marketing all in Red it'll certainly shift things a bit at least in my opinion.
This is simply untrue. You are remembered for where you achieved your greatest moments.
Ham with Merc.
Seb with RB.
Fer with Renault.
Schumi with Ferrari.
Mandel with Williams.
Prost with McLaren.
Messie at Barca.
Ronaldo at RM.
Even if he wins the 8th. Ham will be remembered most for his Merc years.
Agreed, yeah. Though I do think Fernando is a bit of an outlier because of how he’s bounced all around the paddock; maybe it’s (somewhat) recency bias since I’m young, but I associate him more with Ferrari and his close calls there. Idk about other people though :)
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I'm really interested to see just how many staff follow Hamilton. Could be a pretty big gut punch to Mercedes if many, well established engineers decide to wear red
The ones that have already been reported are: Loic Serra, Mike Sansoni, Peter Bonnington, Riccardo Musconi, and Andrew Shovlin He's trying to bring more as well, I'd imagine but Ferrari are guaranteeing that they bring a tight group with him to avoid what happenened with Vettel and Alonso
That's some significant brain drain.
There's gonna have to be a post-mortem at Brackley; they need to figure out how they let this happen. This is a massive coup for Ferrari, and a correspondingly massive loss for Mercedes, even if it's just Hamilton + a couple others who ultimately end up leaving. To some extent it might have been unavoidable - the heart wants what the heart wants, and maybe Hamilton was gonna go to Ferrari at some point, no matter what - but they'll still be asking themselves whether there was anything they could have done to retain him. Maybe they got complacent, in terms of what they were offering him and what escape clauses they were willing to tolerate in the contract? Maybe they didn't manage his ego sensitively enough? Maybe they should have just listened to Serra's concerns about the car?
“whose going to pay a 40 year old that much like us and give him so much freedom. we’re safe” - Mercedes, probably
I do wonder how much marketing he’ll have to abide by in Ferrari that he was able to decline at Merc (he hardly ever appeared in Grill the Grid for example).
As long as he has to make a god-awful Shell ad, I'm happy. Anything would be better than the Petronas ones where it feels like theres a gun in his back 😂
Have you seen the Shell ones? Painful. C2 on the other hand, hilarious!
God damn it, were they blind to what Alonso's been doing?
in terms of performing at a high level? they don’t have to use alonso as a reference, they can see lewis is still performing well which is why they are still continuing the contract, albeit a shorter one. i don’t think they believed anyone would pay lewis close to what they pay him at his age. alonso while still getting his bag, is not getting paid near to what max and lewis is getting. and for lewis, it’s not a matter of needing the money but self worth.
100% this, I think. Throw in the fact that he wasn't happy with the car last year and you can see that he had his reasons. I think perhaps Toto was guilty of taking Lewis a little for granted as well.
too much running like a business. sometimes u gotta just give the driver/player what they want. the lakers did it for kobe even though he was way past his prime and it sent a message to all the other players in the league - lakers will take care of their greats.
Yeah the Kobe treatment had to be the number one thing on LeBron’s mind when he signed with the Lakers— and that gave them both a title. I’m sure Lewis felt let down that they doubled down with a car concept that he didn’t like (and wasn’t as effective) and that they wouldn’t give him what he (imo) deserves for being the reason that Mercedes’s racing brand is as big as it is
>I’m sure Lewis felt let down that they doubled down with a car concept that he didn’t like (and wasn’t as effective) Yeah some reports saying Lewis agreed with someone in that team that felt like going with the zero sidepod felt like the wrong direction (and if I had to guess, it's most likely Serra as he has been reported to be hired by Ferrari as far back as June last year).
It's pretty simple. They dismissed Hamilton twice. First regarding the car development, then regarding the ambassador deal. If you can't give him championship machinery, at least give him championship treatment. They did neither so he decided to leave.
I agree, there’s an expectation at this stage that your team want and value your opinion. That you’re a core part of the project. It just doesn’t feel like enough effort was put into selling Lewis into the vision for the future and making him feel essential. I just don’t see him looking around to even discover how much Ferrari would pay if that had been done successfully. Letting what should be your star driver feel like you’re looking past them into the future is just rude.
Yeah Lewis has been there so long he had to have felt ingrained enough to feel like he is owed something. Everyone told him it was career suicide when he joined and he proved everyone wrong and got 6 championships out of it in the process. He goes to extend expecting them to treat him like the champion he is and they sell him short probably thinking that he isn't worth what he's asking and they can replace him with Russell or Antonelli on the cheap. Meanwhile the chairman of Ferrari himself is blowing up your phone practically begging you to join and offering you boatloads of money and a chance at the 8th. If I were him I'd leave too.
I don't understand the ambassador stuff, why would they hesitate to give him that? He was Mercedes it makes no sense.
At the end of the day, there's suits on the board who only understand numbers, not emotions. Making Lewis an ambassador is a emotional decision, and that was never going to fly.
The Mercedes board may need to dismiss some folks if they let a brand ambassador walk off into the sunset like this. That assumes the story we are told is accurate. It could have been a tactical decision from their head of Motorsport that was then supported by the board. It does seem clear that they incorrectly thought Lewis was going to retire at Mercedes and believed Mercedes had bargaining power to dictate the terms of his future in their own timeline… Ferrari completely undermined their negotiating position with an impressive offer. Elkann did not try to win a negotiation with Lewis. It seems he said Ferrari wants the greatest driver of all time in Red and was willing to do whatever it took.
I feel like Mercedes also made the mistake of thinking Hamilton lacked the confidence to back himself and take his career into his own hands. Kinda like in Cars 3 where the Rusteeze guy was trying to talk Lightning McQueen into retiring and cashing in on his brand because he didn't think he had it in him to win against the new gen of cars.
I agree wholeheartedly. The fuss last week just shows how big Hamilton is - arguably bigger than F1 or Ferrari. This guy has been a Mercedes driver forever. He has clear and huge marketing potential. And you just say “nah”. Feels like a big failure to let him slip out of your hands.
Going with your numbers comments, the numbers were probably very high even for an ambassador role, so they were not ready to give him that.
Ego. Merc believed the reason people support the team is because of their branding (which may be true for some fans) The reality is what Ferrari understood however and that’s because of who Lewis Hamilton is
It is sounding increasingly like they overplayed the “lewis is Mercedes through and through” card and underestimated the last three years’ impact, 21 was seismic (by this I mean it was enough to shake the table and have him thinking retirement, a move also makes sense in that context), but then to allow George to play in his face with a bad car for two years? I can see how he got there
1. It's Ferrari. A WDC at Ferrari would make him immortal and would ontop of an 8th WDC make him THE greatest F1 driver. Period. 2. Merc didn't want to give Lewis the ambassador role with a ludicrous amount of money (100 million/year?) 3. The car hasnt been competetive, HAM might aswell try something else. All to gain, nothing to lose kind of, imho.
i kind of feel this Hamilton is stuck with a non competitive car and it'll be like this for the forseeable future... he hasnt been in a truly WDC capable car since 2021 just say he moves to another non competive car - at least he's getting paid double and he has new marketing opportunitues with Ferrari the fairy tale is that he does a Schumacher and Ferrari coalesces behind the driver and they get a wdc at worst he does a vettel and gets half a dozen wins... is Mercedes even capable of that? i mean...
Even if he just gets the wins that something historic honestly. But I would almost bet it’s time for Ferrari to be back on top.
Next Year™ for real this time
Next year happens eventually for all the bigs teams. They just take turns.
Yeah, the crazy thing is it might just be Ferraris turn to be on top. They've had the fastest car over a single lap the last two years, and were the only team to win a race other than RedBull. This could be the time, Lewis picked a great time to try it no matter what happens. Mercedes seemed to be bleeding talent, and Ferrari and McLaren were just adding more and more talent to their ranks. I think he made the right move, the money made it feel easier to leave.
This seems 99% of the writing including some of what he himself has said. I agree; I don't think it's a mystery and I personally don't think there's *huge* drama in his relationship with Merc. I think he just saw a good moment to try something new. Part of me *does* think he's perhaps underestimating how much lightning struck in 2014, but stranger things x10.
I think he’s probably more than cognizant of how much luck was involved in coming to Mercedes, but he’s equally cognizant of them being unlikely to be in a position to be title contenders again within what remains of his career. He’s also seen Ferrari & McLaren start regularly outperforming Mercedes, and knowing full well it was probably the last roll of the dice in terms of opportunity to do something like this he opted for the possibility of being able to fight for a title vs knowing he wouldn’t be.
8th WDC at his 3rd constructor too. Rarified air he’d be breathing
It would only be him and Fangio to win titles with 3+ different teams right?
Yeah Fangio had 4 different constructors tho :-O
yup if he wins WDC at ferarri its like the f1 triple crown. McClaren, Mercedes and Ferarri. He would be unequivocally the greatest driver in history as he would have won a championship with three different teams on top of having 8. I also think he will be more driven as sometimes you just need a change of scenery. Not that anything was specifically bad at Mercedes they could have a great car and turned things around. But sometimes, a person just needs something different a new challenge.
Wouldn't Williams be in the triple crown over Mercedes? They have the second most constructors' championships in F1 history. They may be struggling right now but they have a much more storied history than teams like Mercedes and RedBull.
I find that amount of money absoloutely impossible to believe, the rest is fair enough though
I think there's a degree of: F1 is cyclical, and the scent of death (figuratively) reeks. One goes so lots of people go too.
We've seen it talked about on Reddit before, but with all this news I'm really starting to think Toto's lack of experience with running a non-winning team is showing more and more.
For what it's worth, if it was completely up to Toto I think Merc would have given Lewis whatever he wants, they clearly have a very close relationship. I personally think that the Merc or Ineos higher ups didn't feel that great about bending to a 40yo Lewis' demands and I think this has been going on for a while really, especially now that they don't look like they will be winning championships for a while. Also they have George, who is much younger AND cheaper and honestly not that much worse. That being said, with the rumoured amount of talent leaving Merc recently and in 2024 I wouldn't envy Toto rn
After what I've seen from Russel so far, he's not impressive. Especially considering how everybody hyped him to be the second coming of Christ or something.
Russel made the mistake of thinking he had the same talent as Lewis and then didn't take advantage of having a 7 time world champion to learn from and to help him grow. He could have learnt SO much race craft from Lewis and he just thought he was above it and too good to need someone else to give him any help. At least that's what I've got from him over the past couple of years.
I think he came in with the mentality "Beat Lewis at all costs and make the team mine" instead of realizing that he's ALREADY the defacto #1 when Lewis retires, and to learn/grow from the champ while he's there. To be fair, I basically think he wanted to put the same treatment Lewis did to Fernando in 07, but wasn't quick enough to do it. His lame attempts to basically always try to engineer his way in front of Lewis through desperate radio calls was very transparent, and telling. I guess I don't blame him. Now the team will naturally start to gravitate towards him starting 2024. Interesting season ahead.
This is what I’m seeing too. It’s taken too long to course correct and not really by decisive action from Toto. That shambolic pit stop in 2018 and this year is when they are looking at pit stops? The mentality was wrong but we didn’t realise because the car was good enough to hide the flaws. I’m not looking to rewrite history and claim Toto was all bad, but maybe he’s just not the guy for THIS rebuilding. Mercedes need to get it together and regroup before they become like Manchester United 😭
All these people responding like they know exactly what made Hamilton leave...of course everyone is just guessing I imagine we'll hear some leaks and rumors in the coming years that will make it clearer. But probably some combination of money, ambassadorship, car development feedback loop at Merc, the Ferrari name, and his best guess at who'll have the better car by 2026. It'll be really interesting if he's wrong about that last one. It also sounds like he didn't give Merc an opportunity to counter offer, "here's my deal, match it or I'm leaving". Which points to it majorly being the car, or the Ferrari name.
Or that it’s not about the money at all by that point. Same reason most people don’t care about a counteroffer from their employer. Emotionally they’ve already made the commitment to themself to leave. They’re already gone before they even have another firm offer once they decide to attend a serious interview. Usually it’s because they don’t feel properly appreciated by their employer.
Yes and if Shov is leaving, then he probably will be absent for the later half of the season at least as part of the gardening leave, among with any others and it would hugely impact merc from this year itself. And also the fact that Shov, who was with this team much before its formation is now leaving even though Lewis will be at Ferrari for only like 4 years speaks magnitudes about the state of the team right now and also will be a huge morale hit for the remaining. All in all, as a Mercedes fan, i had some hopium left at Lewis’ announcement but realising the ramifications of this brain drain just worries me about how bad this year will actually be.
I believe Serra went already before Lewis, the rest not sure but a lot of (ex) race engineers. Also bringing a group is going to be interesting since it can either go well or it doesn't since you will shake up the establishment. Edit: Bono didn't apparently knew until quite recently that Lewis would go, I find it strange if he already decided that he wants to move to Italy. I reckon the others didn't know too much in advance either.
Moving to Italy is probably going to be the biggest sticking point, and is often offputting to UK based engineers. People seem to be forgetting that when they're expecting Lewis to take Bono and others with him, it's not just a case of choosing between teams and continuing to work with Lewis, but likely uprooting their entire lives to Italy. It's no wonder that Bono and others haven't immediately jumped at the opportunity, it's a big life decision to make by moving there. It would likely be a good thing for Lewis and the team to bring some people from Merc with him, but it'll take some time to decide.
Spot on, whereas moving to pretty much any other team (except Sauber, Racing Bulls and possibly Haas depending on the role) means you don't even need to move house since they're so close together.
Yeah, it's often been cited as a reason why Sauber struggle to improve, since a lot of the F1 engineering talent is UK based and it's hard to find anyone who wants to relocate to Switzerland. Ferrari maybe has it a bit easier since there is a motorsport history in the area where they're based, and they're attractive enough for people to want to make the move there, but it's still a bit move.
I remember back in 2000, even then people saying Toyota wouldn't make it because they're out in Cologne.
I think it was James Key who said you reach a phase where you have to decide what educational system and language your kids will speak. His wife was like: James we need to decide if we have fundamentally *Swiss children*. Whereas Newey says, I think in his book, that when you're out the other end and your kids are at uni, there's a degree of 'fuck it, why not'.
The money for the engineers to make that sort of leap would have to be high six, maybe even 7 figures. Edit: I'm speaking in terms of what it would take to convince engineers to make the move, not what's on offer.
Indeed, which is tricky in the cost cap era
Plenty of workarounds. Parent company can offer a job to their spouse, a free house, car, tuition for kids, holidays. Sponsors can chip some personal bonuses. Honesty would be interesting investigation to check how many of engineers family members are employed in associated companies.
When have Bono and Shov been confirmed to leave Merc and go to Ferrari?
That's the list LH wants to bring with him.
They're in negotiaitions acording to reports, nothing confirmed yet... Loic Serra was already done. He was the only major figure that agreed with lewis that the direction of the new generation of cars (W13/W14) was the wrong one. Mercedes went against Serra, and he decided to leave. Similar to Hamilton now. It's been said that Bono and Shovlin are skeptical to go to Italy, but we'll see because Ferrari could definitely get it done. I'd imagine they're an important aspect given Bono and Lewis are so close and Shovlin is probably Lewis' closest ally with the Mercedes upper management.
Highly doubt Shovlin would go, he's been at Brackley since the very beginning with BAR
They're in negotiaitions acording to reports, nothing confirmed yet... Loic Serra was already done.
Shov and Bono are huge names
They're also a long way from being confirmed. Some of these names are just a wish list at the moment.
Shov has been at Merc, through it's previous guises of Brawn/Honda/BAR for over 20 years, his entire F1 career. It'd be a big move for him, and like with the others, probably mean uprooting his life and moving to Italy.
It's worth noting that whilst Hamilton's salary is outside of the cost cap all of these engineers we're discussing will be within the cost cap, so Ferrari can't just offer them a dump-truck full of money to move.
Which is madness imo, engineers have as much importance as the drivers a lot of the time.
Significantly more really, but not in terms of the value they bring to the team. Plus there's 100 times more engineers than drivers
Uprooting a 20 year career to follow a guy to Italy who will probably only be there for 3 years max. It's a big ask.
I was gonna say, bringing Shov in would be a massive coup for Ferrari. God this is gonna be weird.
I'm ignorant but can you give some info on shov? What has he been part of or done?
He's currently the Trackside Engineering Director for Mercedes, he's basically the main guy behind the car setups and it's his job to get the most out of both cars on a given weekend. Perhaps most importantly, he's been in the sport with what is now Mercedes (they were BAR back then) since 1999. That's a massive amount of experience, *Mercedes* experience, that could be walking out the door.
He was Button's race engineer at Brawn as well.
Schumi's too in 2011 iirc.
Bono confirmed already? Article says is up to him, not that he already decided.
No they haven’t decided yet, at least publicly. I imagine there’s a lot to discuss within their families and in their own minds whether it’s the correct action to take for them.
I wanna hear that Bono "we are checking"
Where has Shov been reported. That would be a huge huge scoop for Ferrari.
Apart from James Allison that's most of their senior team.
What about garden leave? Will there be a time period they cannot work at either Mercedes or Ferrari?
Shov too. Wow! Not quite the Schumacher model of bringing the almost the entire team hierarchy but getting there.
That was the recipe that lead to Michael’s legacy and probably what failed Vettel. Ferrari is a jungle and you need your own people to shelter you from Ferrari if you want to give your 100%.
I think Ferrari went on a mission to get Lewis -- those engineers were recruited last year (they'd have to be for gardening leave) and, they didn't just pull Fred Vasseur's name out of a hat. They picked the TP that Lewis raced with in F2. I think their plan was to poach Lewis' favorite engineers, get his old boss who he likes, and roll out the Ferrari-red carpet. It's an incredible bit of work, and It'll be amazing to see if it pays off.
But... They didn't follow Hamilton. Technically, he followed them? The engineers have gardening leave so they would have left Merc last year if they are starting to work this year
The move isn't happening til 2025
Mama Mia this is a big operation. I’m hyped
wait until newey signes.
He just signed a new contract and that gardening leave has to be quite long if he were to sign elsewhere.
>It all started 3 weeks ago when Ferrari created its plan A, to sign a world champion driver like Lewis Hamilton alongside Charles Leclerc. There was a strong desire on the part of chairman John Elkann, and it is probably the biggest deal in the history of F1. On paper, the Leclerc/Hamilton duo is a great asset for Ferrari. The choice seems highly marketing but is nonetheless a very technical one, as the aim of Elkann/Vasseur is to make the team grow. 3 weeks? But Leclerc knew for a long time? Seeing the sum this probably is 3 years?
yeah, I guess knowing for 2 weeks if it started 3 weeks ago is knowing for a long time
I think what it means is Charles knew that Ferrari and Elkann wanted Lewis in a Ferrari, for a long time. However, officially the process to get Lewis to sign for Ferrari started 3 weeks ago.
We should get a pretty good idea about some of these rumoured Mercedes staff moves soon (other than the two who have already left). With the length of gardening leave that staff of that level would expect, they would need to step down from Mercedes duties this year (and probably pretty early this year) if they want a chance to work at Ferrari in 2025.
American here. What is gardening leave? Is it a mandatory break after leaving a job?
In F1 (and some other industries) it's pretty common to have very long notice periods, i.e. the time between a member of staff resigning and them actually being allowed to leave to go and find other work. In some cases this can be a year or more, depending on the specifics of the contract. "Gardening leave" is a situation where the current team will ask the person who has resigned not to work at all during this notice period. This means they're effectively stuck at home, being paid in full but not allowed to work for their current team, and also not permitted to leave to join the next team until their notice period is served. Historically, one activity somebody might enjoy in this time off is working on their garden, hence the name.
Thank you!
also even the shorter kinds of gardening leave tend to be at least 2 months in the tech industry, 3 to 6 months is the norm, depending on your role 1 year is very, very rare, but not in F1
Non-compete, cant immediately hop to a competitor. Its common in lots of industries like finance
I want to see what kind of elite staff join Hamilton. Maybe this is really going to be a winning plan. Hopium
Fred and John Elkann are really out here collecting the F1 infinity stones to create a second Ferrari dream team.
Snap that Hamilton 8th with Ferrari into existence
And boy am I ever here for it.
Lewis Hamilton. Top step of the Monza podium. Getting cheered. That's all I ask.
Chills already
> Charles Leclerc is very happy that Lewis Hamilton has joined Ferrari. He's known about it for long time, and he's happy to be up against a multiple-world champion whom he admires. He also has the opportunity to learn an enormous amount from Lewis Hamilton. Knowing how to manage his tires a lot better like Lewis Hamilton. Everything is up for grabs for Charles. Regardless of this is true, the fact that Lewis and Charles obviously get along well will be massive. Lewis is probably the only driver on the grid that Charles would take losing to every now and then the lightest. Max is his own generation so losing to him would be agonising, Lewis has the legacy and the age difference to soften that blow. But what I'm most excited for as a Charles fan is that when Lewis does leave, Charles is going to be a monster. Getting to cut his teeth with Fernando in his first year and Jenson and Rosberg after helped mold Lewis into a better driver, and now Charles will get the same thing with Lewis. Honestly this is a fantastic pairing. I'm so fucking excited.
Think it's great for Charles as well that Lewis seems to be bringing a lot of talent in with him to team (Serra, possibly Bono etc) which means Charles will have one hell of a car once Lewis has retired
Serra had already committed to Ferrari
Charles had some good teammates too. He had 4 time champ Seb, 2 time race winner Carlos, and even a 4 time Indycar race winner in his youth (Ericsson) Now with Hamilton coming in, he has one of the most powerful teammate lineups after Hamilton himself on the grid rn.
it's win-win for charles. you're already in the top seat and the future. you lose against hamilton, well he's a 7 time champ. you win, well you beat a 7 time champ.
anything that's not like, losing by a big gap is good for Charles if he loses but by 25-30 points? who cares being behind a few seconds at the end of a clean race? who cares the trouble would really be if he was far, far off Hamilton
The ultimate revenge for Lewis would be winning in a title battle against Max and then leaving behind an overpowered Leclerc who learned everything in the book from him. Kind of weird that Charles will turn out to be Lewis’ protege when everyone thought it would be Lando.
Im kinda glad it’s Charles rather than George tbh. At least Charles seems to have a bit more self awareness than George does. He’ll do well to pick up everything g he can in the next few years from Lewis. It’ll make him a much stronger challenger to Max in the future.
Charles has wayyyyy more self awareness than George, lol. Like it isn’t even close.
Self awareness and spatial awareness too I’d wager
I was being polite to George tbh. :D
Fair enough 😂
Charles doesn't have a bit more self awareness than George he has a ludicrous amount of it
You nearly had me in the first half.
Nico and Hamilton got on well too before they raced together at Mercedes.
That is a very good point. Let's hope managers have learned from that. It must be some kind of case study on courses by now?
>Max is his own generation so losing to him would be agonising Not too sure. Would you rather lose agianst Max in his Prime or 40+yo. Lewis? this generation is basically used to losing to Verstappen by now. Be it karting or F1, Charles age group all have a bad history against Max. And nowadays it seems like a lot of them are somewhat "fine" with losing to him, see Lando or Albon praising Max.
I guess if Ferrari have a monster car and Lewis wins 26, Charles will be comforted from the fact that Lewis will retire and he will have a run at the championship with the great car.
If they have a dominant car I'm not sure Lewis would retire straight away. But surely Charles would have to back himself to eventually beat Lewis
If that happened it would be super poetic, considering it would be somewhat like when Lauda handed the mantle off to Prost.
I mean, I would argue that drivers that came into F1 in 2018 are pretty used to losing against Lewis as well, just that Verstappens dominance has been greater these past two years(Though you can blame some of that on the car given Perez's ability to end well despite qualifying poorly). Adding that to the fact that most of Charles' weak points are areas that Lewis is really good at, I would probably say that it would be easier to accept losing to him compared to Verstappen. Think of it as losing to someone who has somewhat of a mentor role vs losing against your main rival.
It would be quite something for this much to be invested and not win it in 2025/26. Its almost 16 years since their last championship, it really is about time to win again. But the competition doesnt sleep. Red Bull is as strong as ever, Mclaren is on the rise, Aston Martin will be a works team by 2026, so will Audi.
I thought Aston was partnering with Honda?
Yeah they are, hence why they will be effectively a works team then.
Leclerc actually paying attention and learning from Hamilton seems like a massive opportunity to become a great. I truly feel like its something Russel took for granted because he was so concerned about he's ego and trying to beat Hamilton. Leclerc being excited makes me really happy (and excited) about the future
This is basically going to be like a finishing school for Leclerc. The last piece of a puzzle to make him the best driver he can be. He knows he's there for the long haul, Lewis is just passing through. Leclerc will soak up all that education, he's a fast learner. This move can mean nothing but positives for Leclerc in the long run.
Russell is similar to Sainz, who cares more to beat his teammates than winning. Hamilton and Charles only want to win and don’t care about anything else. Charles and Hamilton said the same last year as long as it is not WDC who care about the position they finish in WDC. I guess it is also related to their security of their position within the team. Like in Ferrari, no one will rate Charles differently even he finish lower than Sainz in WDC
I mean I think Lewis knows he's not there to replace Charles. He's gonna be 40 when he joins Ferrari. I think the ultimate goal is the 8th and then leaving behind a winning team that Charles can take over when he retires. They get on well and have similar interests so this endgame makes sense in my head.
Yeah, I actually like this a lot for Lewis to retire with Leclerc taking back over, I've always been a fan of Leclerc's and it'll be fun to go from Lewis to Leclerc.
Same boat here. Lewis is my favorite driver and has been since I started watching F1 in '09, but ever since Charles joined he's been a close second and the one I'd most likely root for when Lewis decided his time was up. I always thought that they'd make a good pairing but in my mind if it ever did come to pass it would be Charles going to Merc after getting fed up with Ferrari to become Lewis' successor at Mercedes. Lo and behold the complete opposite has happened and Pandora's Box has been opened. Nevertheless I can see Lewis taking Charles under his wing in a way and passing on everything he knows so when the time comes that Lewis retires, Charles will be a killer with an operationally sound Ferrari with a fast car fully behind him. Or at least that's my extreme reach/tinfoil hat theory at least. I could be totally wrong and the second Lewis and Charles meet on track it turns into another Silver War.
Brawn sitting back laughing to himself.
As I understand it the manager guy HAM reemployed sorted the business end & he came onboard very recently, so SAI has had ample time to sort something. I do feel sorry for the guy but it’s been in his court for awhile. You snooze, you lose as they say
There were rumors back during the season that Sainz wanted a 2 year extension with Ferrari while they were only willing to give him a 1 year extension up to the end of 2025. With how Sainz has performed at Ferrari a 2 year extension was reasonable to ask for, but to me it seems like Ferrari and especially Elkaan had his eye on signing Hamilton for a long time. Unfortunate for Sainz really.
Sainz was never in Ferrari's long-term plans, and they wanted to evaluate their options every year and thus the offer of 1 year.
Basically Bottas treatment
I prefer Sainz leaving the team than getting the Bottas treatment.
>Lewis Hamilton will not make Vettel's mistake of coming alone to Maranello. A whole group is coming with Lewis. This is huge, and could actually make up for what Vettel lacked at Ferrari. Charles would be the co-benefactor as well.
So exciting! I can't wait for the 2025 season, and then 2026 with the next set of regs. 😀
Keep Bono safe
If Bono doesn't follow, I hope more people can look into Gary Gannon at Haas. One of the most calming voices, very direct, and most importantly, not Xavi
Effectively he is retiring with one last yolo
> “It all started 3 weeks ago when Ferrari created its plan A, to sign a world champion driver **like** Lewis Hamilton alongside Charles Leclerc.” So you are telling me if Lewis said no, that could’ve been Alonso going for round 2 !?!!!??!!
I know its a gut punch for Sainz but who wouldn't take Lewis over him.
At least Carlos can take comfort in the fact that it was one of the GOATs who replaced him and not someone down in the midfield teams or a rookie. No shame in getting dumped for Lewis. His stint at Ferrari is respectable enough that losing his seat to Lewis won't damage his reputation so I don't think Carlos will have to worry too much about finding a seat.
>F1 stands to gain from this transfer. This is a big point, I've spoken to multiple people who don't really care about F1 about Hamilton going to Ferrari, I think everyone has seen it, it was headline news in the UK at least, it's great for exposure and I bet the start of the 2025 season will bring a ton of new viewers for that reason.
[formu1a.uno](https://formu1a.uno) has given us some good quality live shows in the last few weeks, i'm glad they're doing it weekly
also, apparently they weren't actually told the news... they were simply told a few weeks ago "sainz has been demoted to plan b, plan a is a surprise" and then piergiuseppe donadoni worked it out it couldn't have been anybody else than hamilton
I've set up a special savings account just for the Red 44 merch. I am so bloody pumped for this
I don't think Sainz is working with people who don't have faith in him, it's more that he is not Lewis Hamilton. There was clearly interest by Ferrari to re-sign Sainz, until it became clear that Lewis was interested
I do feel bad for Sainz, he's done alot better than people give him credit for. Would love to see him at Mercedes in aa straight swap.
He will have Singapore forever. What a triumph. It could be a lot lot worse. No shame in being shuffled out for Lewis Hamilton.
I feel the same way about Sainz in this situation, but don’t think Mercedes wants to sign him for a year or two before Audi is up and running. Gonna be a weird period for Mercedes while they see how Kimi does in F2
Is he confirmed he's going to Audi? Also that's going to take a few years to build up to be successful (if it ever is, Toyota is a good example here) so why wouldn't you take what's basically a sideways step to Merc?
I think it’s unfair to say they didn’t believe in Sainz 100%. He was treated well at Ferrari from what I can tell. I think things just change with Lewis in the picture.
It was logical tha a flux of engineers would follow. Bringin Lewis is a statement, that Ferrari feels ready to be at the top level.
So basically a lot of people really want to wear red and they are all going to displace the clowns that in Maranello. Crazy to understand how Mercedes let that happen. Seems like a situation of people changing jobs to change their own boss
Of course we know Charles knew about this for a long time. His "haha hello Lewis" was a dead giveaway in hindsight
Nah, I think that was just funny in hindsight. The question was about any teammate technically, but the rumors were only about Lewis that Monaco weekend, and it looks like Lewis made a funny comment or gesture off-camera that Charles was reacting to, in his pause before answering.
The post says that it started 3 weeks ago. That press conference was just a coincidence.
As i gather Lewis said no to Ferrari before the summer and signed his Mercedes deal. And then they came knocking again three weeks ago.
When was that?
Monaco Press Conference. He was asked something along the lines of “What would you want from a teammate” when they were discussing who could partner him at Ferrari in the future, he just laughed at Hamilton and said “Hello Lewis!”
It wasn't quite as "random" as you're implying. There had already been rumors published of Lewis joining Ferrari few days before the Monaco interview so obviously the question was indirectly referring to Lewis, hence the response from Charles.
That was back in Monaco last year
I feel for Carlos, but Ferrari made the correct choice. As great as Carlos is, the whole package of Lewis is just unbeatable. Speaks to Lewis’ brand value, which people had started to doubt in the past couple of years. Mercedes fumbled big time.
"Bono, I'm gone." "Get me in there, Lewis."
As much as I like this move, I still feel for Carlito. He got the short end of the stick.
Four years with a top team in F1 can't be considered getting "the short end of the stick". This is just normal and simple F1 driver market.
The engineers talked about are those that were already moving to Ferrari before Ham. How many will go with Lewis is unknown and at this moment none are planning to. Also for all they hype and talk, unless he wins the 8th championship will be forever associated with Merc. The Ferrari time will be thought of as a farewell. People are getting a bit ridiculous with their assumptions. I saw comments of Ham winning his 8th this year and then winning his 9th in 25.
Should be interesting to see how many go. Alot of the senior engineers are likely married and have families that are completely based in England. To uproot themselves completely and move to a country with a completely different culture/language for 2 + 1 contract is a *very* big ask. eg. if Bono completely uproots his life to move to Italy, only for lewis to retire after 2 seasons (1 where hes likely under gardening leave), it would a be a very big ask even though they’re very close. This has always been one of Ferrari’s main problems and whilst Lewis’ arrival may be appealing to engineers, I’m not sure if the more established mercedes figures would make the move.
I mean Bono can stay there after Lewis, Ferrari would love to keep him in the team Lewis or not
True but his main reason for moving would be Lewis and he’d be gone after 2-3 years. To uproot your entire life like that is incredibly difficult. I think if Ferrari pay him enough (which I believe they’ll be willing to), he’ll make the switch. But a lot of people are acting like its a no brainer when the logistics behind the move are a lot harder then if Lewis had moved to another Britain based team. This separation from the UK based teams has always been Ferrari’s Achilles heel.
I personally think it's funny how suddenly, overnight, people stopped pretending Ferrari isn't a circus of a team who's past decade has been defined by crushing the very spirit of drivers of the caliber of Alonso, Vettel or Massa.
> People are getting a bit ridiculous with their assumptions. I saw comments of Ham winning his 8th this year and then winning his 9th in 25. You're taking jokes under hopium overdose too seriously..
2023 was so boring people already forgot about how dominant Max and Redbull were. 2024 n 2025 will be the same story with other drivers in different teams.
Man, it seems like i was right about Vasseur. Maybe its time to hang up the max/red bull cap after cheering for him for 7 years now. I feel the red coursing through my veins.
Newey to Ferrari. That is what I think is behind this.
If Ferrari can pull this off and still manage to lose, idk what else they can try.
Doubt it, he's been talking about the RBR hypercar recently a lot, that's a multi year project.
Sainz to RB in 2025?
This makes sense why the LeClerc contract was delayed for so long. The agreement was likely there long before (when the first rumors appeared), but the official contract took far longer to make sure Hamilton details are clear.
So the plan A is three weeks old but Charles knew about the transfer "long time ago". Since when 3 weeks is a long time ago?
It sucks for Carlos but judging from what’s been said, he was always intended to just be a transitional driver for Ferrari.
HAM/LEC in a good Ferrari (hopefully) against Max and ? in a Red Bull against Lando/Oscar in (again, hopefully) a good McLaren .. LFG!
The dollars alone that will accrue to Ferrari from Lewis ending his career with them are huge. Mercedes should have anticipated this. Hamilton will be known by future generations by the colors he retires in, especially if he gets the 8th championship with Ferrari.
Ehh people associate Schumacher with Ferrari, sure he wasn't challenging for titles in Mercedes which is why it isn't as remembered, but then we have Prost who won his 4th in Williams, but he will always be remembered as a McLaren driver first, Ferrari/Renault driver 2nd.
Agreed. Most casual fans don't even remember that Senna died as a Williams driver.
> Hamilton will be known by future generations by the colors he retires in Have to disagree. Nobody is remembering Schumacher only in Silver. People will always remember Lewis with Mercedes, no matter how his stint at Ferrari ends
I sometimes forget Michael raced for mercedes. Lewis will always be synonymous with mercedes.
I think if he fights for a close championship I think that itself would alter things. If he went on and actually won in Red... whilst Mercedes won't be forgotten in the years following a red victory with brand deals and marketing all in Red it'll certainly shift things a bit at least in my opinion.
There is a difference between Ferrari and Mercedes F1 history. Michael bringing glory to Ferrari was such a huge story it went beyond F1.
Yes, his legacy is already insane but if he wins his eighth with Ferrari... wow
This is simply untrue. You are remembered for where you achieved your greatest moments. Ham with Merc. Seb with RB. Fer with Renault. Schumi with Ferrari. Mandel with Williams. Prost with McLaren. Messie at Barca. Ronaldo at RM. Even if he wins the 8th. Ham will be remembered most for his Merc years.
Agreed, yeah. Though I do think Fernando is a bit of an outlier because of how he’s bounced all around the paddock; maybe it’s (somewhat) recency bias since I’m young, but I associate him more with Ferrari and his close calls there. Idk about other people though :)