Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has revealed how he learned that Lewis Hamilton was joining Ferrari for the 2025 season putting an end to one of the most successful partnerships in Formula 1 history.
Wolff has been the head honcho at Mercedes since 2013 and led them to eight consecutive constructors’ championships, from 2014 to 2021 with Hamilton, who joined the team at the same time, also claiming six of his seven drivers’ world titles during that time.
The team have since dipped into a lean period with third and second placed finishes in 2022 and 2023 respectively while the best they can hope for this season is fourth behind Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari.
Speaking ahead of this week’s Las Vegas Grand Prix, the 52-year-old opened up on when he knew that Hamilton was leaving the team and what their relationship will be like going forward.
“There is an emotional side because we’ve been on this journey together,” Wolff toldThe Guardian. “The friendship will change, but not the depth of emotion. On the contrary. This will be a new friendship with Lewis.
“On the professional side, I always see benefits in change. We have new regulations, we have reshaped our organisation and we’re embarking on a new era with our senior driver [George Russell] turning 27 and the junior driver [Kimi Antonelli] being 18. We have two drivers barely older together than Lewis [who is 40 in January]. That’s very exciting.”
Touching on the moment he knew he’d lost Hamilton to Ferrari back in January of this year, Wolff revealed: “I wasn’t shocked at all. I knew this was happening a few weeks earlier when I got a phone call from Carlos Sainz and his father. He said: ‘Something is cooking.’
“That same afternoon I received calls from a few other drivers that were close to Charles Leclerc. Fernando Alonso too. I think it started from Leclerc knowing over the winter and then his closest allies hearing there was a seat free [at Mercedes]. I said to Susie: ‘This is happening without us officially knowing.’”
Wolff explained that he sent a text message to Fred Vasseur, Ferrari’s team principal, asking for confirmation of Hamilton’s departure but received no reply. He decided against speaking to Hamilton directly as he “did not want to put him in a situation where he had to lie”.
Wolff added that when Hamilton came to speak to him about the situation a couple of weeks later the 40-year-old found it difficult “I saw the pain in him to tell me,” he said.
Hamilton’s departure did come with a slim silver lining as Wolff need not face a trickier conversation about Hamilton being too old for a contract renewal. “I would have done it,” Wolff claimed, “But that would have been a real horror for me and for him.”
