Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has reiterated his shock at the timing of Lewis Hamilton’s exit from the team for Ferrari next year – whilst also emphasising that every athlete has a “shelf life.”
Seven-time F1 world champion Hamilton, who won six of his titles with Mercedes, will leave the Silver Arrows at the end of the season to join Ferrari in 2025.
Hamilton, 39, announced the shock transfer prior to the start of the current season and while Wolff insists in a new book – Inside Mercedes F1: Life in the Fast Lane – that he was not surprised Hamilton opted for a new challenge, the timing was a shock of sorts and meant he couldn’t negotiate with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc or McLaren’s Lando Norris.
"I absolutely had it on my radar that Lewis would go,” Wolff said.
“I just could not understand why he would change to another team before we knew if we were going to be competitive. It also did not give me any time to react.
"I had to emergency call our partners and I possibly missed out on negotiating with other drivers who had signed contracts a few weeks earlier like Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris.
"[But] I like the situation - it helps us because it avoids the moment where we need to tell the sport’s most iconic driver that we want to stop."
Wolff, who has replaced Hamilton with Italian teenager Kimi Antonelli to partner George Russell next year, also explained his rationale for not giving Hamilton a long-term contract.
“There’s a reason why we only signed a one-plus-one-year contract,” Wolff added.
“We’re in a sport where cognitive sharpness is extremely important and I believe everyone has a shelf life. So I need to look at the next generation.
“It’s the same in football. Managers like Sir Alex Ferguson or Pep Guardiola, they anticipated it in their performance of their top stars and brought in junior players that drove the team for the next years.”
Hamilton is currently on track for his worst season in F1 in terms of championship position. He currently lies seventh in the drivers’ standings, two points off teammate Russell in sixth, ahead of the next race in Las Vegas on 23 November.
