The Special Lewis Hamilton-Factor Mercedes Will Miss After Imminent Exit

With Lewis Hamilton moving to Ferrari in 2025, most of the chatter revolves around what he’ll bring to the table in Maranello. However, Mercedes will lose a lot, as replacing a seven-time World Champion overnight is impossible. Filling the gap, the team’s trackside director Andrew Shovlin reveals what he will miss the most about Hamilton.

“I’ll miss him as a character because he’s good fun to work with,” Shovlin tells Planet F1.

But that’s not all. Hamilton – who won six World Championships with Mercedes – also helped the team’s engineers a lot. “He is very good at highlighting where the weaknesses are in the car,” he adds.

While it was difficult for Shovlin to pinpoint what exactly he would miss from an engineering point of view, he knew that he would notice the absence of Hamilton’s intrinsic feel of the car.

Hamilton understood the car in a way only he could, by feeling what it was doing, and how the tires responding. These qualities turned him into an icon at Mercedes, and his future boss Fred Vasseur, hopes for the same.

Vasseur’s expectations of Hamilton at Ferrari are clear

As anticipation about Hamilton’s Ferrari move grows, Fred Vasseur – Team Principal of the Italian stable – makes his expectations clear. He wants him to win his eighth World Championship in Maranello.

Vasseur feels Hamilton will, “raise the levels of our demands and preparation.” Calling him a ‘monster’ in terms of organization and approach, Vasseur also thinks Hamilton is an excellent motivator.

Per the Frenchman, Hamilton’s goals don’t stop at setting the fastest lap time. It is about 1500 people working at the factory together, collectively searching for answers that will help the team in the long run.