Antonelli's Push Outlines Hamilton's F1 Departure

Wolff details how Antonelli’s influence expedited Hamilton’s switch from Mercedes F1 during contract talks.

Toto Wolff has revealed that his trust in Kimi Antonelli almost directly triggered the process leading to Hamilton joining Ferrari.

Knowing that Antonelli was nearly ready for F1, seeing him as “a new Verstappen,” Wolff initially offered Hamilton a one-year contract during last summer’s negotiations.

Ultimately, they settled on what is called a “one plus one” contract—a firm agreement for 2024 with an opt-out option for Hamilton in 2025.

After discussions with Ferrari this winter, Hamilton decided to leave—securing a longer contract and a significant pay raise.

Does Wolff regret the decisions that led to Hamilton’s departure?

“No. We made this decision as a team and we’ve always been very transparent with Lewis and what’s good about him is that he can put himself in your shoes and understand where we’re coming from.”

“So, in that regard, there’s no resentment, there’s no betrayal.”

“It was also for his own good to change. It was the longest relationship between a driver and a team. It lasted a total of 12 years. And perhaps he needed, in some way, to change and reinvent himself.”

“Being a driver for Ferrari is very prestigious. Perhaps for us as a team, it’s also important to emancipate ourselves and go in a different direction.”

However, this decision means that Mercedes and Hamilton can no longer seek redress for what they still consider an injustice at Abu Dhabi 2021.

“The story ends without the chance to win that eighth title together, that’s true.”

“But, one must view things from a perspective more detached than ours. He’s the greatest F1 driver of all time. He’s broken all the records and there’s only that one record, the title record, where he’s tied with Michael Schumacher, another great driver—otherwise, with Lewis, the greatest. So that’s that. And we can’t change that.”

“Would I have wanted it to go the other way? Absolutely. Do I think what happened in 2021 was fair? No, it wasn’t. But we can’t go back and there are worse things than losing a race or a world championship. There are bigger dramas in the world.”

After two challenging seasons, Mercedes F1 has finally found its way back to success. Too late to keep Hamilton…

“We never lost hope that we would eventually figure out how to extract more performance from these very special cars, the ground-effect vehicles.”

“We changed our philosophy and saw some initial performance improvements. Then all the factory development was steered in this direction, and these are the results we are seeing on the track today.”

But why did it take so long?

“That’s a good question. It’s the most challenging sport because it involves an interaction between man and machine, and development is pure science. After winning eight world championships, there were perhaps elements we needed to modify in the extrapolation and correlation of data, and our competition is formidable.”

“We knew it would never be easy, and clearly no sports team in the world has won every championship they’ve entered, and the results were not what we thought. But it was still a third and a second place in the championship.”

Wolff considered stepping down from his role as team principal. But ultimately, he changed his mind and says he’ll be around for a good while longer.

“I want to wake up most mornings enjoying what I do and going to races, and that feeling has returned.”

“It wasn’t there in 2020. It’s interesting to note that was our most dominant year. But I enjoy it now and see myself in this role for some time.”

“In the long term, in a few years, I hope we will have had more success, I’d like to manage from the outside, maybe attend 15 races instead of 24. But that’s still a few years away.”