SUMMARY
- Lewis Hamilton's move to Ferrari for 2025 shocked the sporting world, ending an 11-year partnership with Mercedes.
- Jenson Button analyzes Hamilton's decision, emphasizing its massive impact on Formula 1.
It is confirmed that Lewis Hamilton will drive for Ferrari from 2025 onwards. This move alone is one mega-breaking news of the decade when it comes to sports. After partnering with Mercedes for 11 long years, nobody saw this coming. Although a hard one to digest, this is the reality of Formula 1. The team principal of Mercedes, Toto Wolff is on the desperate lookout for an eligible driver to fill in the seat.
Former F1 driver Jenson Button recently shared his insights into Hamilton’s surprising decision to join Ferrari. Having shared a fair deal of time with the 7x champion at McLaren, Button cleared out all the fairly anticipated speculations that arose ever since the announcement. He delved into the potential factors behind this significant move and its most probable impact on the Brackley-based team.
Jenson Button unveils key factor behind Hamilton’s departure
The Briton’s time at Mercedes has been nothing less than successful with 6 championship wins. However, Hamilton’s illustrious history is on the verge of a significant transformation as he prepares for a new chapter in his life. Button carefully stressed factors that go beyond the reportedly tempting $100 million salary at Prancing Horse.
During a special episode of Sky Sports, the former driver stated, “This is massive for the sport. If Lewis stayed at Mercedes – if they won races next year or didn’t win races, it would have been good. But having this shift to Ferrari is massive. It’s a big deal making this change in your career when you’ve been with one team for so long, to suddenly jump into someone else’s team. It’s tough. So fair play to Lewis, it’s a toughie!”
Button’s reflections highlighted the larger impact of Hamilton’s move on both the driver and the Formula 1 landscape. He believes that it was the need of the hour for the 39-year-old driver to make this shift.
Toto Wolff contemplates the future without Lewis Hamilton
Amidst the ‘transfer of the century’, Wolff sheds light on his future with Mercedes. Speculations suggest that the Austrian boss might take the easy way out as the team is lacking their star quotient at the moment. However, as far as the facts go, Wolff holds a huge one-third of the stakes at Silver Arrows and has recently renewed his contract with the team. Hence, this option does not check out.
Toto Wolff believes that the departure of Lewis Hamilton gives Mercedes a chance to be “bold” with its 2025 #F1 driver line-up 👀
Could we see team protégé Andrea Kimi Antonelli in the seat alongside George Russell? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/D2OB0Zd7kx
— Autosport (@autosport) February 5, 2024
Nevertheless, while speaking to the media, he said, “I think whatever role in the team, or whatever title they give it, I’m going to be there in the future. So, it was a no-brainer to continue in an executive role, you can call it CEO, managing director, chairman, or team principal…It wouldn’t have affected me, because I’m so proud of being part of this Mercedes Formula 1 team.”
Regardless, the clock is ticking for the team lead to secure a good performer before Red Bull signs them up for 2025.