Lewis Hamilton admitted he has sometimes struggled to cope with the emotional strain of his announced departure from Mercedes this year.
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The seven-time world champion confirmed before the season that he will leave Mercedes after 2024 and join Ferrari in 2025. He said the decision has produced difficult moments across the team this year, beginning with an awkward first meeting with team principal Toto Wolff.
“The first meeting with Toto at the beginning of the year was awkward, of course,” Hamilton said at today’s FIA press conference. “So it was awkward from the get-go.”
He recalled how tensions surfaced soon after the announcement. “The day after I took some of the team paintballing and they had just found out. So there has been loads of moments through the year. I got lots of shots [from] people, I had loads of bruises. People went in on me that day.”
Hamilton said he underestimated how difficult his decision would make life within the team. “I think ultimately, definitely I anticipated it would be difficult, but I massively underestimated how difficult it would be,” he said. “It was straining on the relationship very early on. It took time for people to get over, get past it.”
His on-track form has varied during the season. He notched two wins in a three-race spell at mid-season, yet he has also produced some notably poor performances in recent rounds, including Brazil and last week in Qatar. Qualifying has been inconsistent and he admitted recently that he was “definitely not fast.”
Hamilton acknowledged he has not always managed the situation well. “It’s been a very emotional year for me and I think I’ve not been at my best in handling and dealing with those emotions,” he said. “I think this year, and so many of you have been here my whole career, so some of you I think you’ve all seen the worst of me and seen the best of me.”
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“I’m not going to apologise for either because I’m only human and I don’t always get it right. And I would definitely say this year has been one of the worst in terms of handling in that from my side, which I’ll work on trying to be better at.
“But I hope the good and the highs far outweigh the negatives and how I’ve handled it or behaved. And as I said, I just remember the good times.”
This marks only the second time in Hamilton’s 17-year Formula 1 career that he will leave a team. He said departing Mercedes has felt more emotionally challenging than his move from McLaren at the end of 2012.
“It definitely wasn’t as painful and difficult as this year has been in terms of the emotions,” he said. “I think because it was at the end of the year, it was much quicker and there wasn’t enough time for it to really settle in for anyone, I think, within the team. So this one’s much more emotional because I’ve been with the team so long and we’ve been through so much together.”
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