Hamilton Opens Up About Tough Final Year With Mercedes: 'Lots Of Turbulence'
F1
Lewis Hamilton opened up about the "tough" final season with Mercedes as he now looks forward to a new adventure in Ferrari.
2024 was a challenging year for Lewis Hamilton and his colleagues at Mercedes, who found out only shortly before the start of the season that the 39-year-old would be leaving them to join Ferrari.
The seven-time world champion signed a new contract with his team during the summer of 2023 for seasons 2024 and 2025. What was strange was that 2024 hadn't even begun, and the 39-year-old had already decided to end his contract early and leave.
Hamilton shared that many of his colleagues initially felt betrayed, and going into the last year together with this mindset was tough. Speaking to Channel 4, Hamilton shared:
"I remember at the beginning of the year when I was printing off the contract and couldn't believe that it was actually happening."
"It's been a really, really, really long year. Tough to firstly go with the announcement and then obviously the relationship."
The 2024 season was quite a rollercoaster for Silver Arrows, who started as the fifth-fastest team, not being able to compete with their rivals from the previous season.
Mercedes then became the fastest car before the summer break and won three Grand Prix races: Austria, Belgium, and, most importantly for Hamilton, the British Grand Prix.
The German team fell back again right after the summer break, but their performance unexpectedly improved in Las Vegas, where Russell and Hamilton secured a one-two.
The last few race weekends have been super challenging for the seven-time World Champion in terms of qualifying, but he managed to end the season on a high with an excellent performance in Abu Dhabi, where he went from P16 to P4.
"Lots of turbulence, lots of ups and downs with people that I've been working with for many, many years."
"Managing that was really, really, really tough through the whole year. There's so many people and it's affected everybody."
"To go through this low, turbulent time and then come back and get to a point here where love just comes through."
"Beyond the upset and people [saying] 'I can't imagine you in red' to now just [saying to me] 'I wish you all the best, thank you so much for everything we've done' and tears."
"It's really beautiful. Honestly, I'm forever grateful to this team, every member that's here, every member back in the factory; it's been the honor of my life to be a part of it."
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