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Toto Wolff has revealed the reasoning behind Lewis Hamilton’s move to Ferrari after 12 seasons with Mercedes, which saw him win the drivers’ championship six times and help the team to eight consecutive constructors’ championships.
The British driver’s final year with Mercedes had shades of a fairytale ending. Hamilton won the 2024 British Grand Prix in his final appearance at Silverstone as a Silver Arrow, marking his first win in F1 for 945 days.
Since making the move across the pit lane to Ferrari, things haven’t quite gone to plan.
Hamilton is currently in the midst of the longest podium-less streak in his F1 career, having not yet registered a top-three Grand Prix finish with the Scuderia.
The move caused quite a stir at the time, with many not sure about the seven-time world champion’s decision to swap silver for red amid the hype of the sport’s most recognisable star joining the most iconic team.
Toto Wolff reveals Ferrari’s offer to Lewis Hamilton was ‘very good’ among other motives
In a recent interview with GPBlog, Mercedes chief Toto Wolff revealed the reasons for Hamilton’s departure from the team after such a successful tenure, stating, “There were moments of unhappiness with us, many times.
“I think all the reasons he had to go to Ferrari are still valid today. He needed a change of environment. And we needed a change of environment. We weren’t as competitive as we would have wished.
“Ferrari looked better. Every racing driver wants to race for Ferrari. He likes the colour red anyway. The deal that was on the table was very good. And that’s, like I said, these reasons are still valid today.”
Wolff’s words beg the question: should Hamilton have prioritised better contract terms at Ferrari over the stability and prior knowledge of the inner workings at Mercedes in his decision to make the move?
At the time of the seven-time world champion’s announcement, Mercedes had just pipped Ferrari to second place in the 2023 standings and was looking to build on that heading into the 2024 season.
If things had gone differently at the highly controversial 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, we may be looking at a completely different scenario for Lewis Hamilton in F1.
But they didn’t, and Mercedes saw themselves fall down the F1 pecking order in the following season when F1 introduced a new set of regulations.
They put all of their faith in the ‘zero-pod’ concept which backfired massively, and cracks started to appear in the dynamic of the team that had once looked to be unbeatable.
Wolff may not want to make the same mistake as he did with Hamilton’s exit in relation to George Russell’s contract extension at Mercedes. Russell has made the same demands as Hamilton in negotiations, putting the ball in Wolff’s court to make a decision on the future of the team.
Did Lewis Hamilton’s move to Ferrari make sense?
The British driver’s main motivation in sticking around in F1 into his 40s is to get another shot at an eighth world championship that he feels should have been his a long time ago, and he felt that making a move to one of Mercedes’ main F1 rivals would be the right way to go about that.
However, Hamilton would have been much better off sticking around at Mercedes and making an effort with the team’s 2026 challenger to push for a title once the new F1 regulations come into effect and the grid resets.
Instead, Hamilton has had to contend with several issues in his debut campaign with Ferrari and may have deja vu once the new cars hit the track for testing next year.
Wolff believes no one will remember Hamilton at Ferrari due to his lack of success at the team. The motorsport executive compared his current stint to Michael Schumacher’s return to F1 with Mercedes in 2010.
The German legend was a shell of his former self as he battled amongst the midfield in sub-optimal machinery. Whilst Ferrari is in a much better spot than Mercedes’ early years in F1, the lack of results for Hamilton may be having a regressing effect on his legacy in the sport.
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