Due to provisions in his Mercedes contract that prohibit him from speaking with the team at Maranello before the end of the 2024 season, Lewis Hamilton has acknowledged that it will be “difficult” to adjust to life at Ferrari at the beginning of the 2025 season.
There will be a major shift in almost every aspect of the seven-time world champion’s personal and professional life. The fact that longtime race engineer Peter “Bono” Bonnington will not be moving to Maranello with him will make the transition considerably more difficult.
The future of Bonnington at Mercedes was a subject of much conjecture following the announcement of Hamilton’s contract. The 49-year-old put an end to any residual hopes that he would work with his close friend and colleague at Ferrari when he was elevated to head of race engineering, following a period of silence on that front.
“I just came in and Bono was the chief engineer at the time when I joined this team,” Hamilton said. It needs to be a compatible person. It must be someone with whom you can easily develop a relationship and earn your trust in the end.
The following one will therefore involve a discovery procedure. I’ll be able to tell early on if it will succeed or fail. I believe that communication is the key.
Hamilton is a little worried about the heavy workload he would face after joining Ferrari. “It’s difficult,” he went on. That makes things rather challenging. It’s likely the same for everybody moving into a new office, in my opinion. Not till you depart. Starting the following year, it will be heavily loaded.
At the conclusion of the season, Hamilton’s 12-year collaboration with Bonnington will come to an end. The British driver will collaborate with a new race engineer in 2025. That man will be Riccardo Adami, who presently serves as Carlos Sainz’s co-conspirator after once working with Sebastian Vettel.
