Wolff Reveals Sainz Sr Told Him First About Hamilton's Exit To Ferrari
F1Saturday, 09 November 2024 at 12:30
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff discussed how and from whom he found out that Lewis Hamilton would be leaving his team at the end of 2024.
Lewis Hamilton's contract with Ferrari was kept secret for quite some time before the news about it got leaked to the public shortly ahead of the start of the 2024 season.
When Toto Wolff was asked earlier this year about how he found out that the seven-time World Champion was leaving his team, he told the story of how Hamilton sat down with him for a coffee after the winter break and then told him.
However, the team principal of Mercedes now revealed that Carlos Sainz Sr, father of the driver whom Hamilton was replacing (Carlos Sainz Jr), had informed him about what was going on two weeks prior to that. Wolff said on the High-Performance podcast:
"So I heard the bells ringing two weeks before. Yeah, the old man Sainz called me and said, this is what's happening."
"And then there were a few drivers' dads rang me up that didn't before. So I thought, Okay…there's something going on there."
"And then I sent a text to [Ferrari boss] Fred Vasseur saying: 'You're taking our driver?' Didn't get any response. Very unusual for Fred. He's a good friend. So yeah, I saw it coming."
Had the team principal of Mercedes, Toto Wolff, known earlier that the seven-time World Champion was leaving, he could have potentially negotiated with other drivers like Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc.
However, he didn't. Should he have tried to somehow convince Lewis Hamilton to stay with the German team? The 52-year-old revealed that he had a chat about this with his friend Pep Guardiola:
"I think if someone decides to go, then you need to let them go. I had a chat with Pep Guardiola a long time ago, and he is a friend."
"I said, 'What do you do if this and that player leaves?' And he said, 'What do you mean I do?' I said, 'Well, do you try to convince them to stay?'"
"He said: 'No, if somebody thinks he can play elsewhere better or earns more - you have just got to let them go.' And it is something that I embrace in the same way here. Somebody wants to go - then let's make it as good as possible for each of the parties."
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