Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team boss, has come to terms with Lewis Hamilton’s decision to move to Ferrari. The news, which broke unexpectedly fast in February, has not affected his friendship with the British driver. Wolff can even understand why Hamilton is keen to relocate to Maranello.
In early February, Lewis Hamilton kicked off the 2024 silly season by announcing that he would be moving to Ferrari in 2025. The news came as a surprise to many of the British driver’s fans, and even Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff was taken aback by the speed at which the news was made public.
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Wolff’s Reaction to Hamilton’s Unexpected Move
“What was so painful was that I had no time to react,” Wolff tells Sky F1. “It was actually the same day. And then I said: ‘Okay, how are we going to announce this? At the beginning of the season or halfway through the season?’. It was clear that it leaked from Ferrari. And it happened to fall on the day that the profit was announced.” The Austrian did not have enough time to inform everyone within Mercedes of Hamilton’s move.
Wolff Still Sees Hamilton as a Good Friend
Yet, the relationship with the seven-time world champion has not deteriorated as a result of the unexpected announcement. “There is a professional and a personal relationship and when he signed a short-term contract [last year], it was clear that this could happen,” Wolff explains that Hamilton’s move was not entirely unexpected.
The Austrian can even understand why Hamilton wants to spend his last years in Formula 1 in a red overall. “I read somewhere a good motto: ‘Play hard, forgive quickly and apologize when you’re wrong’. And the personal relationship [with Hamilton] does not suffer. So I have come to understand why he does that, and I am absolutely at peace with it. We have been friends and allies and brothers in crime for twelve years and he has to be competitive in the car, but we are still friends,” concludes the Mercedes team boss.
