Hamilton's Chances This Season 'Got To Be' Impacted By Move To Ferrari Says Hill
F1
Damon Hill suggested that Lewis Hamilton's move to Ferrari might hinder his chances of success in the remaining ten Grand Prix weekends of the 2024 season.
At the start of 2024, Lewis Hamilton decided to end his new contract with Mercedes after one year (after 2024) and sign with Ferrari starting in 2025.
However, drivers and teams don't usually make such decisions so early- with one season still to go because it might complicate things for them. How?
This was already discussed at the start of the 2024 season, and even Max Verstappen suggested that the common practice would be for Mercedes to stop sharing crucial data with the seven-time World Champion at some point in the season.
This means he should, at some point, inevitably be put at a disadvantage compared to his teammate, George Russel. Asked if Hamilton's exit to Ferrari will have an impact on his chances for the remainder of the 2024 season, 1996 Champion Damon Hill said on the F1 Nation Podcast:
"I think it's got to, hasn't it? I mean he's got to be excluded from conversations to do with whatever's coming for next year."
It would be quite unfortunate timing for the 39-year-old, who just seemed to have gotten his form back in the last six Grand Prix races, during which he scored two victories and four podiums.
"They don’t want to show any insights that he might take to Ferrari particularly, so it may be he’s deprived of a little bit more information than he’s liked in the past, but they are an honorable team, Mercedes, and I think Toto is an honorable person."
"I think that he'll always be treated fairly within the team, but there's only so much you can give away, isn't there, when you've got a guy leaving?"
Hamilton already hinted in a few interviews that he was losing out to his teammate in qualifying sessions for reasons that he didn't understand. Could it be that he is already missing some crucial data?
This has not been confirmed. Mercedes's Andrew Shovlin suggested that it could instead be related to the difference between how their two drivers work with their tires.
Nevertheless, according to Hill we could see that Hamilton starts struggling a bit more in certain areas just because the German team won't want him to take certain data to Ferrari with himself. Hill added:
"It's not like a technical person who when they leave a team they have to go on gardening leave and they can't join a team until the following year or something like that."
"The drivers can go from day one to the next team the moment their contract has expired."
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