Hamilton will leave Mercedes to become a Ferrari driver from 2025 – 02/01/2024 – Sport

Lewis Hamilton, 39, will leave Mercedes in 2025 to become a Ferrari driver. The official announcement was made this Thursday (1), one day after Italian press outlets reported that an agreement was about to be finalized.

In an official statement, Mercedes confirmed that Lewis will leave the team at the end of the 2024 season. The statement also says that he activated the release option in the contract as agreed last year, when the parties signed a new agreement.

When talking about his departure, the driver stated that he had 11 “incredible” years with the team and is “very proud” of everything they achieved together.

“But the time is right to take this step and I’m excited to take on a new challenge,” said the Englishman. “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 together on a high. I am 100% committed to delivering the best performance possible this season and making my final year with the Silver Arrows one to remember .”

Toto Wolff, team principal, declared that “Lewis will always be an important part of Mercedes’ motorsport history” and that he knew that “the partnership [entre eles] It would come to an end naturally at some point and that day has arrived.”

In a statement released on X, formerly Twitter, Ferrari also confirmed the driver’s arrival for next season. “Scuderia Ferrari is pleased to announce that Lewis Hamilton will join the team in 2025 on a multi-year contract,” the team wrote.

Holding the record for F1 titles alongside German Michael Schumacher, with seven trophies, Hamilton will join the most winning team in the history of the category, with 16 constructors’ titles and 15 drivers’ titles.

Together, Hamilton and Ferrari will work to expand these milestones and end the fasts that bother them. While the driver has not won a race for two seasons, in his period of greatest drought, the team has not won a championship since 2008, when it won the constructors’ trophy — despite the world champion being Hamilton himself, still with McLaren.

The last driver to win a season with Ferrari was Finn Kimi Raikkonen, in 2007.

Signing Hamilton was a dream sought by the CEO of the Italian team, Italian-American John Elkann. He has been friends with the Brit for a few years, and the relationship fueled rumors about a signing.

For Hamilton, it is a huge step forward in his bid to win an eighth drivers’ championship after controversially losing the 2021 title to Max Verstappen.

The move shows faith in the growth of Ferrari, which finished three points behind Mercedes in last year’s championship. However, the Italian team was the only one to prevent Red Bull from almost absolute dominance, with a victory for Carlos Sainz in the Abu Dhabi GP — the other 21 stages were won by the Austrian team, with 19 victories for Verstappen and two for Sergio Pérez.

Sainz, however, is the one who will lose his place to Hamilton, as Ferrari has renewed Charles Leclerc’s contract until 2029.

Hamilton has won six of his seven world championships since joining Mercedes in 2013, helping to build one of the most dominant teams in F1 history. There were eight consecutive constructors’ titles between 2014 and 2021.

But the team has gone through a crisis over the last two seasons, struggling to match the form of the dominant Red Bull. Hamilton’s last victory occurred in December 2021. The Englishman, who had recorded at least one victory per season since 2007, spent two championships blank.

Mercedes has established a strong bond with Hamilton throughout his F1 career, working closely with him on many charitable initiatives off the track, particularly to improve diversity and representation in motorsport.

In 2019, Mercedes director Toto Wolff said that Hamilton and Mercedes had discussed the possibility of the driver one day racing for Ferrari and that this move would not be a drama.

Without Hamilton, the team will have to find a new name to partner with fellow Englishman George Russell.

The 2024 F1 season starts on March 2nd, when the Bahrain GP will be held. This year, the calendar foresees 24 stages, a record in the history of the category.