Toto Wolff says Lewis Hamilton leaving "helped" Mercedes - "Everyone has a shelf life"
Lewis Hamilton will leave Mercedes for Ferrari at the end of the season and Silver Arrows team principal Toto Wolff is glad to avoid having to tell the seven-time F1 champion to move on
by Daniel Moxon · The MirrorToto Wolff has claimed Lewis Hamilton's decision to join Ferrari "helps" Mercedes as "everyone has a shelf life".
Hamilton's bombshell announcement back in February rocked the sporting world but Mercedes chief Wolff insists he saw it coming. In new book 'Inside Mercedes F1', the Austrian told author Matt Whyman the timing was unfortunate as two top candidates to replace him had already penned new deals with their current teams.
He said: "I absolutely had it on my radar that Lewis would go, I just could not understand why he would change to another team before we knew if we were going to be competitive. It also did not give me any time to react.
"I had to emergency call our partners and I possibly missed out on negotiating with other drivers who had signed contracts a few weeks earlier like Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris.
"[But] I like the situation - it helps us because it avoids the moment where we need to tell the sport's most iconic driver that we want to stop."
Hamilton signed a new deal only a few months earlier, committing him to Mercedes for the current 2024 season with an option for another year on top. But the seven-time F1 champion, who will turn 40 in January, exercised his option to walk away after Ferrari made their approach and he "could not get it out of my head".
And Wolff has claimed that the deal was structured that way so that Mercedes could cut ties themselves if they needed to. He explained: "There is a reason why we only signed a one-plus-one-year contract. We are in a sport where cognitive sharpness is extremely important and I believe everyone has a shelf life, so I need to look at the next generation.
"It is the same in football. Managers like Sir Alex Ferguson or Pep Guardiola, they anticipated it in the performance of their top stars and brought in junior players that drove the team for the next years."
Wolff chose to do exactly that, promoting 18-year-old academy driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli to partner George Russell next year. And while the goodbye at next month's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix will no doubt be emotional, the Mercedes chief insists he holds no grudge despite his personal affection for Hamilton.
He added: "This was a business decision. We have enjoyed such a successful journey together, and now we have our own objectives. This did not even move the needle for me. I am thick-skinned - I have had some pretty tough moments in my life, and this does not compare."
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