F1 | Hamilton's escape accelerated by Mercedes fears?

Toto Wolff made no secret of it: Lewis Hamilton ran away because Mercedes opened the door for him. The Austrian manager would have reserved a two-year renewal for the seven-time world champion, but it seems that the constraints for a shorter duration have come from Stuttgart.

The agreement reached was apparently for one year with the option for a second. And both the driver and the team could exercise the exit clause. The revolving door, therefore, had already been set in motion when the renewal was signed. A strange sign for a driver who is approaching the end of his career, but who had placed in the Star the expectation of creating a role that would extend well beyond the champion's career, becoming something more than a simple ambassador for the brand.

And, while Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team has always been generous in supporting Lewis' social activism, supporting Ignite, the charity initiative which aims to help young people follow their path in motorsport and promote greater diversity and inclusion in Motorsport, something must have gone wrong if the seven-time world champion who had professed absolute loyalty to the German brand, gave in to the offers of John Elkann and Ferrari. Was the role Hamilton aspired to no longer exist? At one time he had even hoped to join the Mercedes board of directors. Dreams, hopes, follies? We don't know. The fact is that nothing has been achieved.

Indeed, according to the chatter in the paddock, the German parent company itself would have wanted to be cautious about Lewis' future: the doubts were not so much that he would be enchanted by the Ferrari sirens, but rather that he might decide to stop suddenly, as Nico Rosberg had done after having won the 2016 world championship. The idea, therefore, was to have a response from Hamilton by the end of February, before the 2024 season got underway and it was clear what the level of competitiveness of the W15 was, which Lewis only got to find out on the simulator.

The previews speak of a car without the defects of the W14, but the car designed by James Allison is unlikely to be able to chase down Max Verstappen's Red Bull RB20. Lewis, who has never made mistakes in his market choices, will have had precise guarantees on what Ferrari's growth will be in 2026 and will probably be a skilled “pied piper” in convincing those who are still needed to follow him in the new adventure Maranello.

The move, therefore, would have started from Germany, unleashing a domino that led to speeding up everyone's time, causing events to precipitate, when, almost certainly, the historic transition could have been managed more calmly and with less frenzy as we later saw .

Lewis incredibly saw himself with the ball in his hands and played his game, embarrassing Toto Wolff: the team principal, when he connected via zoom with the Brackley workers, was in Milan to take part in a preparation meeting to the season with Mario Isola and the Pirelli staff.

Wolff was the head of a technical group that included Andrew Showlin and a handful of engineers as well as George Russell. It is interesting to observe the presence of the young English driver who will have to take on his shoulders the responsibility of giving the Star a future and Hamilton's absence was not at all accidental.

Lewis will be separated at home: Pirelli has scheduled the second test session for the development of the 2025 tires on 6 and 7 February. At Jerez de la Frontera we will only see Russell as the starting driver or will the seven-time world champion also be there ?

Andrea Kimi Antonelli will race in F2 with Prema, but will soon be expected in F1 with Mercedes

Photo by: Prema Powerteam

2024 will be a very particular championship, given that even the jubilee Carlos Sainz will find himself in a strange situation inside the Ferrari garage. It will be a world championship full of ideas: Mercedes wanted a quick response and found a nice surprise. They say that Toto is not too desperate about Lewis' exit, even though a very solid relationship that had lasted 12 years has broken down. Wolff knows he has a diamond in the rough in his hands: Andrea Kimi Antonelli will be 18 years old next year to debut in F1. The boy from Bologna raised by Stella has the stigmata of a champion.

If he is able to confirm the good things he has done so far in the F2 championship, he will have the chance to join Russell on the black arrow, just like what happened to Hamilton who at McLaren in 2007 found himself dealing with the more celebrated Fernando Alonso. At Prema Kimi will have as his teammate Oliver Bearman, the protégé of Ferrari, who already boasts a season in the cadet series. It will be a hard-fought and interesting “derby” between the bearers of two brands who will once again challenge each other on multiple levels…