Toto Wolff and the breakfast where Lewis Hamilton dropped the bomb and told Mercedes he was leaving for Ferrari

Lewis Hamilton the boss was surprised Mercedes, Toto Wolff announcing during a breakfast that he would be leaving his team to join Ferraribut that “there is no bad blood” between them, Wolff himself said on Friday.

Wolff admitted that he had heard rumors that Hamilton might leave the team, but that he wasn’t sure until the driver himself confirmed it during a meeting with a breakfast on Wednesday at Wolff’s home in Oxford, England.

Hamilton will leave Mercedes at the end of next season to join Ferrari in 2025 following Thursday’s announcement. Hamilton has been part of Mercedes since 2013 and he won six of his seven titles with the team.

“The surprise was that I had heard the rumors a couple of days before but I wanted to wait until the breakfast we had planned and it was Wednesday morning, that’s when he gave me the news,” Wolff commented.

“But you know, you can be direct with me because I am too. So when she said, “That’s what I try to be”, it was a fact. “I didn’t try to convince him to change his mind.”

Wolff added that he still considers Hamilton a friend. “We will discuss in the future whether this could have happened differently or not, but there is no resentment”.

This is a look at the surprise within the Mercedes team, commented Wolff Peter Bonningtonthe race engineer who worked extensively with Hamilton and is known as “Bono”, responded: “Is it April Fools’ Day?” when he was told Hamilton was leaving.

At the end of August, Hamilton finalized a two-year contract extension, but it has taken effect a termination clause which allows him to leave the team after a year.

Wolff acknowledged that the fact that Hamilton is looking for a new challenge is not a surprise, but the timing is. He suggested that Hamilton is perhaps “rolling the dice” as the 39-year-old seeks another chance to win his eighth title.

“We knew that signing a short-term contract could benefit both parties. We couldn’t commit long term and he decided to take the option to leave. “We completely respect the fact that you can change your mind, they are different circumstances,” he said.

Now Mercedes can take its time deciding who the new couple will be George Russell for next year, Wolff added. He compared this moment to the sudden departure and retirement of Nico Rosberg in 2016 after winning the title.

“I’ve always liked change, because change gives you opportunities and that’s the same way we welcomed Nico’s situation,” he commented. “And this also happened from one moment to the next, unexpectedly.”

Hamilton hasn’t won a race since 2021, when he (controversially) lost the title to Verstappen in the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi.

Mercedes have struggled to adapt to changes in the car’s aerodynamics in 2022 and Russell’s win that year in Brazil is the team’s only win since. In 2026 – the second year of Hamilton’s multi-year deal with Ferrari – they will begin to apply new rules which they believe will impact the grid.

Hamilton has been linked to Mercedes almost all his life, since he signed with McLaren at the age of 13 as a karting champion. Mercedes supplied McLaren with engines during the McLaren-Mercedes young driver development programme.

Source: AP