Mercedes celebrate Lewis Hamilton’s ninth anniversary with the team

Mercedes celebrated nine years with Lewis Hamilton with a nostalgic social media video. The video documented Hamilton's first day at the Mercedes factory in 2013. Watch the clip on the team's official Twitter handle below:

Hamilton walked around the team's factory in Brackley, introducing himself to the various people who worked there at the time. The then-one-time world champion gave a speech to mark his entry into the German team, speaking about the 2013 Mercedes car.

In what turned out to be one of the greatest partnerships in the sport, the Briton helped Mercedes try and uplift their fight for world titles. The team had a promising start in 2013, placing second in the constructors' championship. The now-37-year-old played a pivotal role in bringing the team up the field, engaging in frequent battles with eventual world champion Sebastian Vettel.

The 2014 season saw new regulatory changes, with the introduction of turbo-hybrid power units. Reigning world champions Red Bull could not manage to provide Vettel with a reliable car as they had done previously, giving other teams a chance to fight for the title. In this, Mercedes got their engine and car development absolutely right, winning the 2014 constructors' championship by a gap of nearly 300 points. Lewis Hamilton won his first drivers' title with the team that year, ahead of teammate Nico Rosberg in second place.

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Tension seethed between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg

The championship battle between teammates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg has been dubbed the 'Silver War' by fans — and understandably so, as both drivers competed at the front from 2014 to 2016.

The most infamous case of friction between the two rivals was the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix, which saw both drivers take each other out in a first-lap collision. Both drivers blamed the other for causing the incident, with Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff having to save face in front of the press. He said:

“When we looked at the incident, and there are people in the team with racing experience and an opinion, the opinion differed between all of us. What I take home is that it was an incident that could’ve been avoided by both sides. It’s so difficult to really attribute percentages of blame.”

Rosberg eventually bested Hamilton in 2016, winning his only title in the sport before retiring.

Meanwhile, Mercedes has won every constructors' title in the turbo-hybrid era of F1. Red Bull became the only team besides Mercedes so far to win an F1 title in the ongoing era, when Max Verstappen won the 2021 drivers' championship.