Hamilton Not Too Worried About Newey Choosing Aston Martin Over Ferrari

Saturday, 14 September 2024 at 10:17

Mercedes F1 driver Lewis Hamilton, who will drive for Ferrari from 2025, responded to the announcement that Adrian Newey would join Aston Martin.

When it became clear in May 2024 that Adrian Newey might join a different team once he left Red Bull, Lewis Hamilton publicly said it would be a privilege to work with the legendary car designer at Ferrari.

For a while, it seemed like the team from Maranello would be a priority for Adrian Newey (his manager, Eddie Jordan, also later revealed there were lengthy discussions). However, the 65-year-old ultimately chose Aston Martin.

At the start of the race week in Azerbaijan, Aston Martin held a press conference, during which they announced that Newey would be joining the team as Technical Managing Partner and shareholder.

Speaking to the media during the press day at the Baku City Circuit ahead of the 2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton was asked whether he was disappointed, and he replied, as per GpBlog:

"Honestly, no. I feel like, whilst I mentioned before that it'd be an honour to work with Adrian, I've been privileged to work with two championship-winning teams that didn't have Adrian."

In his entire career, Hamilton wasn't lucky enough to collaborate with Adrian Newey on the same team. Yet, he still won seven championship titles.

Consequently, the 39-year-old believes that he can still succeed with the Italian F1 team despite not having the most successful car designer of all time on his side. He added:

"I think probably any team would have been happy to have had him, but at the end of the day, you had to do what was best for him. It doesn't change anything for me or my goal or my focus with the next move, so I still believe 100% that there's lots that we can do."