Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff believes that Ferrari’s readiness to hand Lewis Hamilton a multi-year contract was a leading factor in persuading him to join.
Last August Hamilton had appeared to pledge his future to Mercedes through until the end of 2025 when he penned a two-year contract extension alongside George Russell.
However, Hamilton’s choice to sign for Ferrari next year revealed that an exit clause had been incorporated that permitted either party to exercise an end to the agreement.
Speaking to media including Motorsport Week, Wolff suggested that Mercedes held no regrets over agreeing to such an escape mechanism during negotiations last year.
“When we decided Lewis and us to go for a short-term contract, we knew why we were doing it. It is to leave him options open and at the same time us,” Wolff explained.
He added: “We felt that a longer term contract would limit our options going forward so absolutely aware of all the positives and negatives, and weighing it up – that is what we decided to do.”
Hamilton and Mercedes had dominated F1 upon the switch to V6 turbo-hybrid engines in 2014, resulting in the partnership yielding six titles, 82 race wins and 148 podiums to date.
However, the German marque has been caught unstuck since the return to ground effect aero in 2022 and Hamilton has ended the last two seasons without a single victory.
While Wolff believes Hamilton was eager to embark on a new challenge, he is convinced that Ferrari’s willingness to commit to a long-term agreement over Mercedes enticed him.
“I think what he said is that he felt he needed change, and I can understand that,” he said. “We have been together I believe it was 12 years – I don’t know if any other driver has ever been that long with a team – we’ve had tremendous success, and we shared the opinion when we decided to sign that short-term contract that there may be opportunities for him and for us.
“Therefore I think also one of the considerations was the opportunity to sign a longer-term contract with Ferrari and give it a really big go at the end of his career.”
Wolff concedes that he wasn’t shocked when Hamilton informed him of his decision in a face-to-face meeting this week as he was aware that the possibility was always there.
“In a way, Formula 1 and my previous life have made me imperious to surprises,” he admitted. “I’ve been confronted so many times in my life with black swans that it was a surprise, but as I said before we went open-eyed into this phase of our relationship.
“We knew that it could be a year, it could be two; we knew that it would come to an end at the latest the end of 2025.
“The surprise was that I heard the rumours a couple of days earlier, but I wanted to wait for the breakfast we had planned, and that was Wednesday morning. This is when he broke the news.
“But you know with me you can be very straightforward because I’m straightforward too, so once he said ‘this is what I’m trying to do’, that was the fact and I didn’t try to convince him otherwise, but just looking forward: ‘OK, what are we doing about communications? What’s the timing? How do we protect the team best? And how do we protect this 2024 year to be successful together with our two drivers without causing too much awkwardness?’”
