2024 has just begun, but, at least in Formula 1, after the announcement of Lewis Hamilton's arrival at Ferrari it already seems to be a year of transition towards 2025, the year in which the 7-time world champion will stop being a driver Mercedes to dress the red suit.
The 11 months that separate from Lewis' first day in Maranello, however, will not be lived by staying at home and staring at the rain because you can kill time (just to quote a famous image told in one of the masterpieces of Pink Floyd, also British champions them, but in the musical field).
Hamilton will face his final season at Mercedes this year, with the W15 to be revealed on Valentine's Day. But 2025 is around the corner and the Anglo-Caribbean has a very specific plan: to bring to Maranello people with whom he built his grandiose epic in Brackley to have a family environment right away, people with whom he can immediately understand each other and, therefore, speed up the settling-in process by making Sports Management immediately understand your needs and preferences. Because, after all, although he has signed a multi-year contract (there is talk of a 2 + 1) there is little time to try to win his eighth title. And Lewis knows this well.
This is why the British driver's intention is to bring two key figures of the Mercedes era with him to Maranello. We are talking about Peter Bonnington, better known as 'Bono' in the famous radio teams between the two, and Andrew Shovlin.
Bono has been Lewis' track engineer for years now. Their relationship is very close, the feeling is tangible. Shovlin, on the other hand, is director of Mercedes track engineering, who often takes part in team debriefs with the press and explains what went and what didn't on race weekends.
Over the last few hours there has also been talk of the involvement of Riccardo Musconi, current head of trackside performance at Mercedes and former track engineer for Lewis and Valtteri Bottas when the Finn ran for the Brackley team, but these rumors have not found no confirmation.
Hamilton's requests or intentions make perfect sense. They would repeat what Schumacher had already done with his arrival at Ferrari in 1996. He brought with him Ross Brawn, technical director, and Rory Byrne, designer, both keys to the titles won the previous two years with Benetton.
Today, as we have just entered the month of February, famous for hosting the presentations of the new Formula 1 single-seaters, there are several obstacles to Hamilton's plans. The highest and most difficult one to overcome is represented by the doubts inherent in Bonnington and Shovlin in moving from England to Italy. On the other hand, it would not only be about changing teams, but also changing nations, changing languages, adapting – at least outside of GeS – to speaking Italian and changing the lifestyle of two families.
There is time to convince the two to land in Maranello, but this is not necessarily the decisive factor to change things. Meanwhile, Lewis is preparing to wear the tracksuit again with the Mercedes brand clearly visible on the chest and will try – again paraphrasing Pink Floyd – not to look back and realize that time has passed, having missed the right moment to act.
#Ferrari #Hamilton #bring #Bono #Shovlin
