Hamilton dropped a bombshell on Mercedes last week when he told the squad that he had activated an early exit from his deal so he can join Ferrari in 2025.
The switch immediately opened up suggestions that other senior staff at Mercedes – such as his engineer Pete ‘Bono’ Bonnington – could follow him as has happened in the past when other stars have changed teams.
In 1996, Michael Schumacher was followed from Benetton to Ferrari by technical director Ross Brawn and chief designer Rory Byrne, as well as other key team members.
Jacques Villeneuve took his race engineer Jock Clear with him from Williams to BAR in 1999, while in 2015 Andrea Stella joined Fernando Alonso in the move from Ferrari to McLaren, staying on after the Spaniard left to eventually become team principal.
But Autosport understands that a similar shift of personnel cannot happen in Hamilton’s case due to a specific term in his Mercedes contract.
As part of the detailed terms of the deal that was signed between Hamilton and Mercedes last summer, a specific ‘non-poaching’ clause was believed to have been included to specifically prevent team personnel being lured away if the driver switched teams.
