Guenther Steiner breaks silence on the extravagant Lewis Hamilton farewell from Mercedes: "He got all emotional" 

Guenther Steiner has shared his verdict on Lewis Hamilton's extravagant farewell from Mercedes and said that the driver didn't need to get all emotional about it as he made the call. The F1 legend completed his last race with the German brand in Abu Dhabi this season, and what followed was a very elaborate farewell where the driver said goodbye to different stakeholders at different events.

At the start of the 2024 F1 season, it was announced that Hamilton was leaving Mercedes for Ferrari in 2025 and had opted to take up the option of prematurely ending his contract with the team. This came as a huge shock to everyone involved, as the driver had been a part of the team since 2013 and achieved a lot as well.

Hamilton began his journey with the team in 2013 and then, from 2014 onwards, spearheaded a dominant 8-year stint where Mercedes won the Constructors Championship every time while the driver picked up six titles. The rough period from 2022 onwards arguably led to the driver's departure from the team, as the last few years had been quite tough.

The farewell race saw Lewis Hamilton beat his teammate on the last lap, and what followed after the event was an outpouring of emotions from the driver and the team. Talking about the farewell on the Red Flag Podcast, Guenther Steiner felt that there was no need for the driver to get emotional as he was the one who made the call. He said, via PlanetF1:

“He decided to go there. You don’t need to get emotional about that. He got all emotional about that, there was no need for that. He knew what he was doing when he signed the contract 10 months ago. It’s been a fantastic partnership. Lewis has done a lot for Mercedes, but Mercedes has done a lot for Lewis. It was a win-win situation.”

Steiner on Lewis Hamilton's move to Mercedes in 2012

Guenther Steiner also touched on Lewis Hamilton's move to Mercedes in 2012 and said that at the time, it was the right call because McLaren was no longer a works team. It was getting its engines as a customer from the German squad, and that's not the right recipe to succeed in F1.

Steiner also felt that Niki Lauda and Ross Brawn played a big role in Lewis coming to Mercedes, as he said:

"At the time, I understood it. He wanted to get into a real works team and McLaren was a customer team – they didn’t have their own engine by Mercedes. It was time and obviously he took the right the right pick, he had a good feeling to move there. As I sometimes say: right time, right place. But you make your own decision. There’s a lot of drivers who make the move to another team at the wrong time and I think he just got everything right."

Steiner added:

"He saw something and was convinced about something, what Niki and Ross Brown told him what was going happen with the team. Because at the time, Toto [Wolff, current Mercedes team boss] was not this Toto he is now. Toto was the new boy on the block and I think his credibility came afterwards. But at the time, the credibility for Lewis was Niki and Ross Brawn, in my opinion. It was a good move for him, I guess.”

Lewis Hamilton will try to achieve a record 8th title with Ferrari in his next stint. If he's able to do that, the driver would distinguish himself even more as the most successful F1 driver in the history of the sport.