12 months ago, it looked quite certain that Lewis Hamilton would retire from F1 at Mercedes itself. But the way all of that changed with the tremor of his switch to Ferrari raised a lot of eyebrows as to why the Briton gave up on his beloved Brackley-based team. As Hamilton has kickstarted his stint with the Scuderia, he has shed some light on why he felt the need to change teams.
The seven-time world champion has been adamant about the fact that Mercedes’ recent struggles were not the primary stimulus for his decision. Nevertheless, his statements from time to time about their car performance and the need he felt to seek a new challenge have undertones of him feeling stale after staying on one team for 12 seasons.
“I believe there’s more of a risk in staying somewhere you’re comfortable and in getting complacent. Call it instinct or a gut feeling, but I knew that signing with Ferrari was the right move for me and that it would give me the challenge I needed,” Hamilton said in the ‘Get Hired’ Newsletter on LinkedIn.
A world champion driver like Hamilton, who has over a hundred wins and poles in F1, would naturally want to consistently fight at the sharp end of the field. So, even if he says that Mercedes’ performance decline since 2022 did not propel him to switch teams, he would want to see if the grass is greener at another team like Ferrari.
Lewis Hamilton x Ferrari – how can it possibly fail?https://t.co/XbmCVbeH7W pic.twitter.com/S9YwkOmV7B
— PlanetF1 (@Planet_F1) January 22, 2025
That is certainly the case as things stand, as Ferrari has emerged as a consistent race-winning outfit in the last three seasons, and even contested for the Constructors’ title in 2024. Heading into 2025, the Italian outfit is all set to be in contention for both championships — a prospect Hamilton would be very excited about.
However, can the #44 driver capitalize on the same to get back into his prime form?
Hamilton is at a difficult juncture
Amid the performance decline that Mercedes has, Hamilton’s on-track results were also under scrutiny. There was the caveat that he was often experimenting with new setups and parts to find more performance, which compromised his results relative to his teammate George Russell.
Yet, Russell beat him quite badly in qualifying, particularly last season, with a 19-5 head-to-head in Grand Prix qualifying. With Hamilton having another young dynamic teammate in Charles Leclerc at Ferrari, there is a notion that the seven-time world champion could struggle against the Monegasque too.
However, Hamilton has shown multiple times in the last three years that he still has the ingredients to deliver elite performances, if he has a quick enough car. If Ferrari can provide him that consistently over a season, the 40-year-old could rediscover the mojo that enabled him to win six titles with Mercedes.
Hamilton has changed teams only once before in his F1 career, and that was the masterstroke move of switching from McLaren to Mercedes in 2013. Back then, many deemed that his career would decline as the Silver Arrows were a midfield team. Reality has been quite far from those predictions, and Hamilton would want to emulate the same with his Ferrari move.
He has a few positive factors that could help him get back to his dominant best. Team Principal Frederic Vasseur’s presence can go a long way in unlocking Hamilton’s best at Ferrari. On top of that, the way the Maranello outfit has developed on all fronts, it seems like Hamilton has timed his move perfectly to clinch race wins and his elusive eighth title.
