Lewis Hamilton will join Ferrari in 2025 – Release

The 39-year-old British driver, who holds the record for the number of Formula 1 Grand Prix victories, will leave Mercedes at the end of the 2024 season, his team since 2013.

Red smoke. Lewis Hamilton, seven-time Formula 1 world champion, will join the Ferrari team in 2025 after twelve seasons spent at Mercedes, the Italian team announced this Thursday, February 1 evening. His departure from Mercedes was announced for the end of the 2024 season, one year before the expiration of his contract, the German manufacturer announced for its part. If the 39-year-old driver had extended for two seasons with Mercedes last August, he had a release clause to leave earlier which Ferrari jumped into.

“Scuderia Ferrari is pleased to announce that Lewis Hamilton will join the team in 2025, on a contract for several seasons,” specifies the Italian team in a press release released a few minutes after Mercedes’ announcement of Hamilton’s departure.

This surprise decision comes a few hours after the first rumors about his possible departure, under contract since 2013 with Mercedes. The driver has won six of his seven world titles with Mercedes. Lewis Hamilton will arrive in less than a year at Maranello, the headquarters of Ferrari, where he will reunite with the Frenchman Frédéric Vasseur, whom he had known in 2005 and 2006 in the ART team and had greatly contributed to his arrival in F1 at McLaren in 2007.

Last two difficult seasons

First crowned Formula 3 Euro Series champion in 2005, the Briton did it again the following year in the GP2 Series, which opened the doors to the premier discipline of motorsport. F1’s first black driver, the Hamilton phenomenon, second in 2007, won his first world title in 2008, at the age of 23, with the British team.

A less prosperous period followed, between 4th and 5th place in the world (2009-2013). It was in 2013 that Hamilton entered another dimension, changing teams to Mercedes, the archi-dominator in the era of hybrid engines. Until 2020, he only let one title slip away, against his teammate Nico Rosberg in 2016… before losing the “final” of the 2021 season, in a fight with Verstappen who “rekindled his passion for race”.

Since then, he has had two difficult seasons with Mercedes: he who had always won at least one Grand Prix each year since his debut in 2007, followed two blank seasons and finished 6th and 3rd in the world championship standings. However, this did not prevent him from extending for two seasons last August even though he had previously declared that he did not intend to race beyond the age of 40. “I never thought that at the age I am, I would feel the way I feel today physically and mentally – and that I would still love what I do just as much,” he said during of its extension. The Briton should undoubtedly end his career at Ferrari.

Updated at 8:45 p.m.: details on his journey