Lewis Hamilton will be forced to wait until 2025 to start building a relationship with a new Formula 1 race engineer at Ferrari.
Hamilton had hoped Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington, his long-serving race engineer, would follow him to the Italian team for next season, saying he was like his “brother”.
However, the British engineer has been promoted to Mercedes’ head of race engineering and will remain with the Silver Arrows.
The terms of Hamilton’s contract with Mercedes prevent him from having technical discussions with his new team until his deal expires at the end of the year. And that has a significant bearing on forming the crucial relationship with his new race engineer.
Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix, Hamilton says he understands the reasons for Bonnington staying with Mercedes, but admits it will be “tough” starting a new relationship from scratch in January.
He said: “Was I hoping [he would join Ferrari]? I would have loved to continue with him. We have a great relationship. I love him, he’s like a brother, but I’m really, really happy for him.
“For me, I think it’s just about people doing what’s best for [themselves]. Packing up and leaving, I could only imagine – it’s not him and his partner. It affects both of them, so they have to do whatever is right for him.
Sir Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team, Charles Leclerc, Scuderia Ferrari
Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images
“I knew it would be an unlikely scenario that he would go with me, because it is such a drastic change in his life. But I’m really happy for us here in the team to acknowledge and make changes to his career pathway, so he can grow more. Either way we’re going to be family forever.
“We’ve spoken about it and we just want to make sure we finish on a high.”
When asked if he could only start speaking to his new race engineer in January when his new deal starts, Hamilton confirmed that would be the case and added: “It’s tough. That makes it really difficult but I think it’s probably the same for anyone moving into a new office. [It will] be a very heavy loaded start next year.”
Ferrari needs to decide on who will oversee Hamilton’s side of the garage with the Briton having worked with only a handful of race engineers during his lengthy F1 career.
Hamilton said: “It’s got to be someone you get on with, it’s got to be someone that you ultimately are able to find it easy to build a relationship with and trust.
“And so the next one, that’s going to be a discovery process. We’ll know quite early on whether or not it’s going to work or not, and I think it’s just about communicating.”
With Bonnington’s switch ruled out, Hamilton was also asked if anyone else would be following him from Mercedes to Ferrari.
He added: “Not that I know of. There’s a few people there that I worked with in the past. There’s someone there that left me a long time ago, so I know him, he’s the one I know mostly there about from [Ferrari boss] Fred Vasseur.”
