After 11 years, Lewis Hamilton is leaving the Mercedes F1 team. This brings to an end a massively fruitful partnership that yielded six driver’s titles, to add to his maiden title with McLaren in 2008. For the 2025 season, the Briton will partner none other than Scuderia Ferrari, driving alongside Charles Leclerc.

However, it is interesting to note that Mercedes was worried about him heading to a different, more familiar team. There was a fear that he could head back to McLaren, who was just starting to find their groove over the last two years. Mercedes Chief Communications Officer Bradley Lord admitted that he was not surprised about Hamilton choosing Ferrari despite the McLaren narrative.

What did the Mercedes insider say about Lewis Hamilton?

Over the past couple of seasons, Hamilton and Mercedes have just not been clicking. This can be evidenced by the various radio complaints from the 7-time F1 champion in recent years. When 2024 arrived, those complaints only increased in intensity, and it was clearly the breaking point. That was when he went knocking on Ferrari’s door and the deal was done and dusted.

Lord told the Beyond the Grid podcast, “Not at all, because I think that’s been his plan all along. A few years ago, it came up in conversation. I actually always thought he might be tempted back to McLaren, but I was completely wrong. But yeah, we had a conversation years ago, and he always said that he felt most drivers had a desire to, at least at some point in their career, drive the Ferrari. So I wasn’t surprised at all.”

Ever since Hamilton left McLaren, the team had dropped off a cliff in terms of performance. From 3rd in the 2012 standings, they slipped to 5th in the following year and 2014. 2015 was the start of a never-ending nightmare, and the trigger was the reunion with Honda. On paper, it seemed like a good idea at the time, because their last collaboration yielded much success in the Senna-Prost era. However, putting that into practice was a completely different story.

To say that Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso suffered would be a massive understatement, and they ended the year 9th. In 2016, they only got as high as 6th in the championship, before slipping back down to 9th in 2017. In 2018, McLaren partnered with Renault and finished the season in 6th. From 2019 onwards, the slow rise back to the front began with 4th in the constructors, followed by 3rd in 2020. The team finished 4th, 5th, and 4th in 2021, 2022, and 2023, and clinched the 2024 constructors title this year with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri at the helm.

Was a return to McLaren actually realistic?

Lewis Hamilton is a driver who wants to win and is unused to fighting in the midfield. In his entire F1 career, he has never been in a car that was not capable of winning races, much less titles. With McLaren on the upsurge, a return to the organization that handed him his F1 debut would not have been so farfetched. However, Hamilton admitted his desire for Ferrari stemmed from his childhood. “As a kid, I used to play as Michael [Schumacher] in that car, so it is definitely a dream, and I am really, really excited about it,” said Hamilton.

Thinking back on it, nearly every F1 driver would daydream about racing for Scuderia Ferrari. This was especially reinforced after the dominant Michael Schumacher era. Schumacher collected 5 championships in a row for Ferrari between 2000 and 2004. Since then, several top F1 stars have raced for the Italian giants. Schumacher notably also drove for Mercedes and Ferrari. However, Hamilton will be chasing a record held by only Juan Manuel Fangio, of winning a championship with Mercedes and Ferrari.

Some of the iconic Ferrari drivers over the years include Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso, and Sebastian Vettel. Out of the trio, Raikkonen is the only one to win a driver’s title with the Maranello squad. Now, Lewis Hamilton will be the latest to join the party and he will be hoping to be the next driver to win a title for Ferrari after Kimi.