Toto Wolff has revealed he didn’t attempt to persuade Lewis Hamilton to stay at Mercedes as an alternative of switching to Ferrari and says he was involved concerning the F1 driver’s “shelf life”.
At first of the yr, Hamilton advised Wolff he needed to chop quick his contract with Mercedes as a way to be part of the Scuderia for 2025.
The information ripped via F1 whereas Wolff has claimed that he had suspicions that Hamilton was eager about quitting after a telephone name with Carlos Sainz’s father, who revealed his son was being ditched to make means for Hamilton within the Ferrari squad.
Hamilton – who shall be 40 when he joins Ferrari in January- and Wolff have all the time spoken of a mutual friendship.
And Wolff says Hamilton’s resolution to defect to a different staff is definitely as constructive because it means he doesn’t want an ungainly dialogue with the seven time world champion the place he tells him he’s not wanted.
Wolff cites examples of former Manchester United supervisor Sir Alex Ferguson, and present Manchester Metropolis boss Pep Guardiola, displaying the door to older gamers as they rebuild their squads with the following era of expertise.
Wolff made the feedback in a brand new e book titled Inside Mercedes F1: Life within the Quick Lane.
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes-AMG F1 Staff
Photograph by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Pictures
“I completely had it on my radar that Lewis would go,” says Wolff. “I simply couldn’t perceive why he’d change to a different staff earlier than we knew if we had been going to be aggressive.
“It additionally didn’t give me any time to react, I needed to emergency name our companions, and I probably missed out on negotiating with different drivers who had signed contracts just a few weeks earlier like Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris.
“[But] I just like the state of affairs. It helps us as a result of it avoids the second the place we have to inform the game’s most iconic driver that we need to cease.”
Mercedes is changing Hamilton with 18-year-old Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
“There’s a purpose why we solely signed a one-plus-one-year contract,” provides Wolff in relation to the deal they signed with Hamilton in 2023.
“We’re in a sport the place cognitive sharpness is extraordinarily necessary, and I imagine everybody has a shelf life.
“So I would like to have a look at the following era. It’s the identical in soccer. Managers like Sir Alex Ferguson or Pep Guardiola. They anticipated it within the efficiency of their prime stars and introduced in junior gamers that drove the staff for the following years.”
In the meantime, Wolff has conceded he nonetheless thinks about how Hamilton was denied a file eighth world championship by the hands of former FIA race director Michael Masi and his dealing with of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix the place Hamilton misplaced his crown to Max Verstappen.
Talking on the Excessive Efficiency podcast the place he was interviewed concerning the e book, Wolff stated: “There is a second each week the place I give it some thought [Abu Dhabi 2021], however I primarily give it some thought as a result of Lewis ought to have deserved to be the best of all time with eight world championship titles.
“You possibly can argue all alongside about that yr. I believe Max and Lewis had been deserving champions. There have been situations throughout the yr the place Max misplaced some factors that he should not have misplaced. You have a look at Silverstone. You have a look at the crash in Monza each of them had. So, each deserving champions. However on that specific afternoon in Abu Dhabi, it was unfair.”
