Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes career fittingly ended with an incredible pass on the final lap of Sunday’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Hamilton passed teammate George Russell on the outside entering Turn 9 to grab fourth place after starting 16th.
“Lewis, that was the drive of a world champion,” Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff told Hamilton after the race.
“That was fun,” Hamilton replied.
The partnership between Hamilton and Mercedes is the most successful driver-team partnership in Formula 1 history. After winning one title with McLaren, Hamilton joined Mercedes ahead of the 2013 season, just two seasons after the car manufacturer had restarted its Formula 1 team.
“What started out as a leap of faith turned into a journey into the history books,” Hamilton said to his team after crossing the finish line.
After finishing fourth in the 2013 standings, Hamilton won 11 of 19 races to score his second title in 2014. From there, he won five more titles over the next six seasons and was only denied by teammate Nico Rosberg in 2016 — a title fight that was one of the most dramatic tussles between teammates in F1 history. Rosberg abruptly retired after that season.
Hamilton’s seventh championship in 2020 tied him with Michael Schumacher for the most world titles in F1 history. And he should have broken Schumacher’s record a year later, but F1 fans are well aware of how that didn’t happen in Abu Dhabi as F1 race officials didn’t follow protocol and Max Verstappen passed Hamilton for the championship and the race win on fresher tires on a final-lap restart.
That world championship heartbreak still stings for many Hamilton fans. Especially given how the last three seasons have gone.
Mercedes’ mistake with its car build ahead of the 2022 season led to the first winless season of Hamilton’s career. He failed to win a race again in 2023 as Verstappen won 19 of 22 races.
Hamilton, 39, finished third a season ago, however, and signed a two-year contract with the team that contained an option for both the team and the driver for the second year. With his F1 future seemingly secure through 2025, it was a shock when Ferrari and Hamilton announced on Feb. 1 that he would be declining his Mercedes option and joining the Scuderia in 2025 to team with Charles Leclerc.
Hamilton cited Schumacher’s success with Ferrari when he decided on his “new chapter” in F1. Schumacher won his final five titles with Ferrari.
“Of course, I think for every driver growing up, watching the history, watching Michael Schumacher in his prime, I think probably all of us sit in our garage and see the screen pop up, and you see the driver in the red cockpit and you wonder what it would be like to be surrounded by the red,” Hamilton said at preseason testing.
“You go to the Italian Grand Prix and you see the sea of red Ferrari fans and you can only stand in awe of that. It’s a team that’s not had huge success recently, since 2007, and I saw it was a huge challenge. Without a doubt, even as a kid, I used to play as Michael in that car, so it definitely is a dream and I’m really, really excited about it.”
Ferrari, however, have been faster than Mercedes over the past three seasons. The team finished second to McLaren in the constructor’s standings this season and were three points back of Mercedes for second in 2023 after beating the Silver Arrows in 2022. At the moment, you can argue that Hamilton is joining a team that’s been faster with F1’s current car regulations.
It’s still going to be incredibly odd to see Hamilton in red when preseason testing rolls around in a few months, however. Like Schumacher in red was for Hamilton and many other drivers his age, Hamilton in silver and black is iconic for younger drivers. His Mercedes teammate George Russell idolized Hamilton as a kid and this weekend he had Hamilton sign a copy of a book that he tried to have Hamilton autograph over a decade ago.
The change may ultimately be for the best, though. Both for Mercedes and for Hamilton. The team gets to start over with 18-year-old Kimi Antonelli taking Hamilton’s seat and Hamilton gets the chance to reset after a grueling three years that have not been up to his standards after the craziness of the 2021 season finale.
The struggles have publicly worn on him too. After qualifying in Qatar a week ago, Hamilton said he was “definitely not fast any more” when he was four-tenths off Russell’s pace. That comment came after Hamilton openly admitted that he “didn’t really want to come back” after a trying weekend in Brazil in November.
Despite the doubts and recent qualifying struggles, Hamilton has put in some vintage performances. Hamilton nearly ran down Russell for the win in Las Vegas, the race that immediately followed Brazil. And he was fantastic on Sunday in Abu Dhabi, after a wayward bollard from Kevin Magnussen’s car in the first round of qualifying relegated Hamilton to a 16th-place starting position.
Hamilton started the race on hard compound tires and ran long on his first stint as every other driver needed to pit and change their medium tires. The strategy move allowed Hamilton to use the medium tires for his final stint of the race and he made up over 14 seconds on Russell in the closing laps thanks to the tire difference.
The aggressive pass of Russell was vintage Hamilton. And further proof there’s still plenty of speed and fight left in the driver with the most wins and pole positions in Formula 1 history.
“I love you guys, I really really do,” Hamilton said to his team.
“We love you too and you’re always going to be part of that family,” Wolff replied. “And if we can’t win, you should win.”
