Lewis Hamilton moves to Ferrari from Mercedes
In a shocking turn of events, Lewis Hamilton has announced that he will be moving to Ferrari in 2025 after a highly successful tenure with Mercedes Formula 1 racing team. Lewis Hamilton has been with Mercedes’ AMG Petronas F1 team for over 10 years. Since joining the team in 2013, Hamilton’s time at Mercedes has been nothing short of extraordinary, he is the most successful driver in F1 history with 103 wins and 104 pole positions and seven world titles, Michael Schumacher is the only other driver with seven world titles.
There’s been a lot of speculation surrounding his decision to move to Ferrari’s F1 team, Lewis Hamilton has said he doesn’t want to leave F1 without an 8th title and with Mercedes’ car letting him down in the last two titleless years, him moving to Ferrari which is historically known for having a better car is a good move for him. The move wasn’t only performance based though, It was rumoured that Mercedes’ board of directors refused the proposed deal to make Lewis Hamilton an ambassador until 2035 for $25 million each year for 10 years while Ferrari executive chairman John Elkann proposed a $400 million investment in Lewis’ projects such as Mission44 and transform him into an ambassador for Ferrari.
As the first and only black Formula 1 racer Lewis Hamilton’s personal reach and impact goes beyond the track. Lewis Hamilton has been championing for more diversity in motorsport throughout his career. In 2021, in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter protests witnessed across the world in 2020, he set up Mission 44, a charity organisation aimed at improving education and opportunities overall for black students in the UK, as well as improving diversity and representation generally across motorsport and STEM industries. For Lewis Hamilton to keep fighting for this cause it’s important he has organisations behind him and Ferrari has promised to invest into Mission 44. With Lewis Hamilton at the twilight of his career, it is important that he ends his career with a racing team that invests in causes important to him and life post career.
Lewis Hamilton’s charismatic personality and commitment to various causes have elevated his status both within the Formula 1 community and beyond. The Lewis Hamilton effect is real, he is arguably the most recognisable Formula 1 driver and has a huge fanbase not just of formula 1 fans. On the day of Lewis Hamilton’s announcement, Ferrari gained more Instagram followers (232,021) than they typically do in a month (220,916), according to Zoomph. They also beat their 2023 race day averages with huge social stats such as 330M impressions, $8.6M social value and 17.1M engagements.
For an F1 season that was looking pretty stale, with no new drivers and no new races, this news has definitely shaken up the Formula 1 world. Hamilton’s surprise announcement leaves Mercedes in a tricky position as they are losing a driver seen as one of the greatest of all time and they would need to find a suitable replacement to maintain their competitive edge. With George Russel being promoted to number one within the team, everyone is impatiently waiting to see who Mercedes will get as their second driver.
By: Subomi Odanye
For latest update Download P+us app available on Google App Store
