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Lewis Hamilton will not be joined by other Mercedes personnel at Ferrari in 2025. Speaking to media including Sportskeeda ahead of the 2024 Dutch GP, the Briton explained the reasons for his race engineer Peter Bonnington not joining him at Maranello.
In Silverstone, Mercedes announced Bonnington’s promotion to Head of Engineering. The British engineer who was the lead race engineer for Lewis Hamilton since his first year at Mercedes was considering the possibility of moving to Maranello. Having engineered at least six of the British champion’s titles, Bono has been an equal part of the Mercedes champion’s success. It is common for team personnel to move with drivers to another team.
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When Fernando Alonso moved from Ferrari to McLaren, current team principal Andrea Stella and other personnel migrated along with him. The Italian was previously a performance engineer at Ferrari and has now moved up to lead the team. A similar move for Mercedes personnel was expected with Lewis Hamilton moving to Ferrari. However, the Briton suggested that there are not any personnel within Mercedes who would move to the Italian team.
Bonington was the obvious consideration but Lewis Hamilton suggested that his race engineer had his reasons to refute the idea. He cherished the camaraderie with his race engineer and called him family. The seven-time world champion stated that he was not familiar with anyone at Ferrari apart from Frederic Vasseur from his junior racing days and Jock Clear, who was his performance engineer at Mercedes.
Asked if he was expecting any Mercedes personnel who would migrate to Ferrari along with him, Lewis Hamilton said:
“Not that I know of, I mean there's a few people that go in like that I work with. There maybe there's someone there that left me a long time ago was my number two, Jock. So I know him, he's the one I know mostly there apart from Fred and then I don't know anybody else.”
Asked if he was hoping for Bonnington to move to Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton said:
“Was I hoping? I would have loved to continue with Bono, of course. We have a great relationship and, um, so you heard in Silverstone. I was like a brother, so, um, but I'm really, really, really happy for him. Like, For me, I think it's just about people doing what's best, they have to do whatever's best for you. Packing up and leaving, I can only imagine it's not him and his partner, and it affects, it impacts both of them. So they had to do whatever is right for him.”
“So I knew it would be like a unlikely scenario that he would go with me because it's such a distraction, change within his life. But I am really happy firstly for the team have acknowledged and made changes to like, his pathway within the team. So he can grow more because I think you'll now be able to show them even more and for the great things you can do. But either way, we're going to be, we're going to be family forever. So we've spoken about it and you just want to make sure to finish on a high.”
Lewis Hamilton believes new race engineer at Ferrari will be a discovery process
Lewis Hamilton reckoned that choosing a race engineer is Ferrari’s decision and will be a whole new process. He hoped for the person to be one that he could build a relationship and a bond of trust.
The outgoing Mercedes champion felt that communication is key to a good work relationship between a race engineer and a driver. He suggested that he will only know his new race engineer in January when he joins the Maranello team.
The 39-year-old driver is expecting the winter break to be an intense beginning to the new season, where he will have to acclimatize to a new car, new team, and new engineers.
Asked how the selection process for a race engineer worked, Lewis Hamilton said:
“I mean, the team often does it for you. So, I mean, look, I've only worked with two engineers, two, like, number ones in my career. So I have, no, that's not true, actually. I had Philip Crew, I had Andy Latham and I had one other. I joined this team. I just came in and Bono was, yeah, Bono was the current head engineer at the time. I mean it's got to be someone you get on with. It's going to be someone that you ultimately build, are able to find it easy to build a relationship with and trust. And so the next one, That's going to be a discovery process. We'll know quite, I'll know early on whether or not it's going to work. It's going to work or not and I think it's just about communicating.”
Asked if he gets to know who is race engineer now or if it remains to be seen until January, Lewis Hamilton replied:
“It's tough. That makes it really difficult, but I think it's probably the same for anyone, move into a new office, it's not until you go. It would be very heavy, heavy loaded in the start of next year.”
Lewis Hamilton has had Philip Crew, Andy Lathan, Mark Temple at McLaren and Peter Bonnington as his race engineer at Mercedes. The beginning of his journey with Ferrari will involve building a team around him with his race engineers and other technical personnel.
One of the biggest adjustments for the Briton is going to be the culture at Ferrari and their modus operandi which is different from the British-based F1 teams. After winning Silverstone and Mercedes’ resurgence in the second half of the season before summer break, the multiple champion is motivated to target the maximum result in the last ten races and end his tenure with the team on a high.
