Bonnington's New Role: Head of Race Engineering at Mercedes

Bonnington advances at Mercedes F1, not following Hamilton to Ferrari, and takes over as Head of Race Engineering.

Pete Bonnington’s future remains with Mercedes F1, as Lewis Hamilton’s current race engineer has been promoted ahead of the 2025 season.

With Hamilton departing Mercedes for Ferrari at the end of the 2024 season, thus ending the most successful driver/team partnership in F1 history, the pressing question was whether his race engineer, Pete “Bono” Bonnington, would follow him to the Scuderia.

However, Hamilton will not be joined by his longstanding race engineer, as Bonnington has committed his future to Mercedes.

Having served as Hamilton’s race engineer for the past 12 years, a tenure that includes six driver championships and seven constructors’ titles, Bonnington has been elevated to a new role as head of race engineering.

Although the promotion is effective immediately, he will continue to oversee Hamilton for the remainder of the 2024 F1 season as he prepares to step into his new role.

In addition to his duties as head of race engineering, he will continue to manage one of the Mercedes drivers in 2025 as the team looks to leverage his vast experience. Bonnington’s history with the Brackley team dates back to 2006 with Honda, initially serving as deputy to Andrew Shovlin on Jenson Button’s side of the garage before the team’s transition to Brawn GP and subsequent acquisition by Mercedes.

This move mirrors the arrangement made by Red Bull with Max Verstappen’s race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, who in 2022 was promoted to head of race engineering, succeeding Guillaume “Rocky” Rocquelin, while continuing to serve as the Dutch driver’s race engineer—a role he still retains.

Like Lambiase, Bonnington has become one of Formula 1’s most esteemed race engineers, having worked with Michael Schumacher before being assigned to Hamilton’s car when the former McLaren driver switched teams after 2012.

As for Hamilton, his move to Ferrari will see him collaborate with Carlos Sainz’s current engineer, Riccardo Adami, who also formerly engineered for Sebastian Vettel.