Lewis Hamilton reveals it of hard moments with Mercedes after he announced his Ferrari switch ahead of F1 2024 season, as he reflects on the journey.
Ahead of the 2024 F1 season, Hamilton dropped a bombshell of his move to Ferrari from Mercedes in 2025. That came as a surprise to many including team boss Toto Wolff. Since there was a full season to go, it did make things awkward, especially when he met the team after the announcement.
To add to it, the season wasn’t 100% clean either. They had their highs of multiple wins but there were lows too which they got through. Hamilton certainly did not enjoy the qualifying results where he was consistently down on teammate George Russell, but he recovered well in the races.
Hamilton recalled getting super-emotional when Mercedes presented him a video montage on Thursday of Abu Dhabi GP weekend. “We’ve definitely had our ups and downs,” he said. “There have been certain feelings that I’ve chosen to go a certain way and it’s not been easy for people to accept and get over.
“But, bit by bit, through the year what has come through is real love at the end of the day. I’ve got board members from Mercedes who have stood by and supported me all of these years who were upset at the beginning but they said ‘you’ll always be a part of the family’.
“On Thursday [of Abu Dhabi], the team surprised me upstairs and that was super-emotional. I’ve not got any more tears, everything came out then. It’s been a turbulent year – probably the longest year of my life because we’ve known from the beginning that we were leaving and it’s like a relationship when you’ve told whoever the counterpart is that you’re leaving, but you’re living together for a whole year.
“Lots of ups and downs emotionally but we finished off on a high in Abu Dhabi; with a strong, hard battle, no mistakes and a solid drive,” summed up Hamilton, who then noted about the moments right after the announcement. He also reflected on the move from McLaren to Mercedes.
“I mean, the first meeting with Toto at the beginning of the year was awkward, of course,” recalled Hamilton. “So it was awkward from the get-go, to the day after when I took some of the team paintballing. And they had just found out. So I mean, there’s been loads of moments through the year… Yeah, I got lots of shots from people, yeah, loads of bruises.
“Yeah, people went in on me that day! I think ultimately I anticipated it would be difficult, but massively underestimated how difficult it would be. And it was straining on the relationship very early on, took time for people to get past it. And then just for my own self, it’s been a very emotional year for me. And I think I’ve not been at my best in handling and dealing with those emotions.
“And I think this year, and so many of you have been here my whole career, so some of you, I think, you’ve all seen the worst of me and seen the best of me and I’m not going to apologise for either because I’m only human and I don’t always get it right, and I would definitely would say this year’s been one of the worst in terms of handling that from my side, which I’ll work on trying to be better at.
“But I hope the good and the highs far outweigh the negatives and how I’ve handled it or behaved. And as I said, I just remember the good times. I’ve built some incredible relationships. We’ve gone through. If you imagine, when you’re going when you’re going through a season together with so many people, not only on those race weekends where you’re riding the highs and lows together, but in their personal lives, through marriages, through divorces, through loss of family members, through cancer, through all sorts.
“You’re going through these journeys with these people. So it’s a really beautiful journey you go on together. And being that it was so long, the emotions run so deep. If I’m honest, I don’t really remember the… Obviously, I remember meeting Niki. And I remember making the decision. But I don’t really remember the final days, if I’m really honest. I don’t really know.
“I’ve got a really bad memory, as you know. It definitely wasn’t as painful and difficult as this year has been in terms of the emotions. And I think because it was at the end of the year, it was much quicker and there wasn’t enough time for it to really settle in for anyone, I think, within the team. Yeah, this one is much more emotional because I’ve been with the team so long and we’ve been through so much together,” summed up Hamilton.
Here’s Lewis Hamilton on Africa races in F1
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