The British driver claimed six of his joint-record seven World Championships, as well as becoming the first man in history to surpass 100 grand prix wins and pole positions, following his arrival at Mercedes at the start of 2013.
The early announcement of his move to Ferrari left Hamilton in the unusual situation of spending the entire F1 2024 campaign with Mercedes in the knowledge that they would be parting ways at the end of the year.
Despite ending the longest winless run of his career with victories in Britain and Belgium, this year proved one of the most challenging of Hamilton’s time in F1 having struggled to match team-mate George Russell in qualifying conditions.
Russell outqualified his illustrious team-mate at 19 of a possible 24 races, leading Hamilton to concede at the penultimate round in Qatar that he is “not fast anymore.”
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Hamilton cut an increasingly reflective figure as the end of his Mercedes career approached, telling media including PlanetF1.com at Monza that the emotion of leaving has “been there all year” and “at every race you turn up.”
The 39-year-old also revealed that it was “quite emotional” and “very, very, very surreal” when Mercedes announced Andrea Kimi Antonelli, the teenage sensation, as his successor for F1 2025.
Mercedes have consistently denied suggestions that Hamilton had been frozen out by the team ahead of his move to Ferrari, with the seven-time World Champion afforded the same equipment and opportunities as Russell.
Speaking after the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Hamilton admitted his final season at Mercedes contained “lots of turbulence” and “lots of ups and downs” with a number of trusted colleagues.
And he confessed to being touch by the warm goodbye he received from the team at Yas Marina, describing his time at Mercedes as “the honour of my life.”
Asked if his move to Ferrari has sunk in yet, he told Channel 4: “It hasn’t, honestly.
“I remember at the beginning of the year when I was printing off the contract and couldn’t believe that it was actually happening.
“It’s been a really, really, really long year. Tough to firstly go with the announcement and then obviously the relationship.
“Lots of turbulence, lots of ups and downs with people that I’ve been working with for many, many years.
“Managing that was really, really, really tough through the whole year. There’s so many people and it’s affected everybody.
“To go through this low, turbulent time and then come back and get to a point here where love just comes through.
“Beyond the upset and people [saying] ‘I can’t imagine you in red’ to now just [saying to me] ‘I wish you all the best, thank you so much for everything we’ve done’ and tears.
“It’s really beautiful. Honestly, I’m forever grateful to this team, every member that’s here, every member back in the factory, it’s been the honour of my life to be a part of it.”
He laughed: “I can’t believe that I’m going to be in red next year. It looks good on me, so hopefully I can make that work.”
Hamilton’s comments come after his former Mercedes team-mate and 2016 World Champion Nico Rosberg claimed it was “so important” for the team to demonstrate that there was no favouritism towards Russell during F1
Rosberg pointed to team boss Toto Wolff’s team radio message encouraging him to catch Russell in the closing stages of the Abu Dhabi finale, with Hamilton pulling off a bold overtake on the final lap to finish fourth.
Appearing on the Sky F1 podcast, Rosberg said: “I’m pretty sure they didn’t favour George.
“One of the best times to see that was Toto Wolff’s comment in the race, when Lewis came out of the box and he was 14 seconds behind George.
“He said: ‘So how many seconds?’ And Bono [Pete Bonnington, Hamilton’s race engineer] said 14.
“And Lewis said: ‘Geez, that’s far down the road.’ Toto came on the radio and said: ‘You can do this, Lewis.’
“This is talking about the team-mates! ‘Oh, Lewis, you can do this!’
“If I was George and I listened back on this, I’d be like: ‘Toto, hey, what’s up with that? You should be neutral here!’
“That’s because the team were under a lot of pressure because a lot of fans, every time Lewis gets beaten by George, a lot of fans are like: ‘This is sabotage.’
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“The pressure was on Mercedes and I could see, for Toto, it was so important to show the world that there was no preferential treatment towards George and that they were fair because Lewis is the legend.
“There’s such a tension on there and it would have been really, really bad on Mercedes if there would have been any, any preference going towards George.
“That’s why Mercedes could never allow themselves and they went to a big extent to actually prove and keep showing that there was no preferential treatment.”
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