Fast forward and this is what the Englishman has to say now.
“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 [Wolff] for his friendship and leadership and I want to finish on a high together.”
Now, who’s to say that he won’t be back on the winner’s top step in 2024 for the Silver Arrows, where he’s won six of his world titles, or indeed that he won’t be world champion again this year. But even if he manages one or both of those things, to exercise a break clause, or to do so soon after signing the contract extension is unusual.
Toto Wolff, Mercedes team principal and CEO, has said: “Lewis will always be an important part of Mercedes motorsport history. However, we knew our partnership would come to a natural end at some point, and that day has now come. We accept Lewis’s decision to seek a fresh challenge, and our opportunities for the future are exciting to contemplate.”
Hamilton has made big, unexpected decisions before. When he left McLaren for Mercedes at the end of the 2012 season, after six seasons and his first world title (in 2008) plenty of observers scratched their heads too and look how that turned out. In 2022 he reflected on that decision during an interview for Sky Sports F1 in the UK.
“I looked at the different options that I had, I wrote the pros and cons for each team: ‘Where’s this team going? Where’s that team going?’ The idea of the journey to success with that team, [where] you build something special, is something special. If you join the winning team already, there’s less passion there. So I really wanted to see if that was possible. Did I know what’s gonna happen? Of course not. I believed that, at some stage, we would win with the decisions that were being made.”
Back in 2019, the then Ferrari chief executive officer Louis Carey said at a media lunch that Hamilton had had “conversations” with chairman John Elkann about Hamilton joining them in the future before adding that the meeting was “at a social event which has been blown somewhat out of proportion – they have some common friends”.
Even if that “revelation” was taken with a pinch of salt at the time, the Formula One circuit is such that there are always conversations between drivers and teams; most come to nothing, but some do. Ferrari last won the drivers championship in 2007 with Kimi Räikkönen, and their last constructors championship came the following year. But despite their recent lack of success, they remain not only the most successful team in the sport, with 16 constructors titles, but also the most glamorous. The lure to join them for any driver, whatever the circumstances, is strong. Hamilton appreciates the history of the Italian powerhouse.
Another thing in Ferrari’s favour when it comes to signing Hamilton is their team principal, Frederic Vasseur.
Hamilton has remained close with Vasseur since he won Formula Three and GP2 (now Formula Two) championships with Vasseur’s ART team in 2005 and 2006. In August last year, Vasseur said “I talk to him at every grand prix, he raced for me 20 years ago and we are still close.” Just as then Mercedes boss Ross Brawn was able to persuade Hamilton to move to his team over a decade ago, Vasseur is likely to have had a major impact on Hamilton’s decision this time.
Despite Max Verstappen’s recent dominance, Hamilton remains the sport’s biggest star. He has the most race wins in history: 103. He and Ferrari legend Michael Schumacher jointly hold the most world title wins: seven each. It seemed certain that he would stay at Mercedes to try and secure that eighth world title that would take him clear of the German. Unless he manages to do that in 2024, the Italian team in the famous scarlet red colours will surely provide his last chance to do so.
