Following the departure of Lewis Hamilton from Mercedes to Ferrari at the end of 2024, questions were raised at Pete Bonnington Hamilton’s engineer transfer too.
Bonnington would stay back as he would become head of race engineering at Mercedes, a promotion from his current post as a race engineer. He has continued to serve Hamilton since 2013, when he joined Mercedes till the end of 2024.
Mercedes spokesperson confirmed that there isn’t any clause in Hamilton’s contract to poach his engineer, that would mean the end of partnership between Hamilton and Bonnington. As they have clarified Bonnington would be getting a promotion at Silver Arrows, he wouldn’t be leaving the team anytime soon.
Hamilton-Bonnington partnership
The Hamilton Bonnington partnership is considered to be the most successful partnership between a race engineer and driver in Formula One history. With 84 race victories, they have completed this feat for eleven and a half years.
They claimed their first race victory at Hungarian Grand Prix in 2013, and since then, it has been a journey.
Bonnington had not been present in 2019, he was replaced by Marcus Dudley, when Hamilton won the title that year. He joined Hamilton at the Silverstone Grand Prix podium, his first win of the season after a long gap of 2 and a half years. He has also worked with Michael Schumacher before working with Hamilton, serving the 7 time world champions.
Radio notes like “Hammer time” and “Get in there Lewis” would be sorely missed, after the departure of the 40 year old driver at Maranello.
Bonnington’s promotion at Mercedes
There were reports suggesting Bonnington’s transfer to Scuderia Ferrari, but with the prospect of becoming head of race engineering. Hamilton would get a new engineer at the Maranello based team, where the current engineer of Carlos Sainz is Riccardo Adami.
Bono has been associated with Mercedes way back, while he was a part of Jenson Button’s crew in Honda that was bought by Mercedes in 2010. Since then, he has become a revered member of the team and widely regarded race engineer, because of his partnership with Schumacher and Hamilton.
Just like in Red Bull, Max Verstappen’s engineer is the head of engineering of the team, Mercedes is also going to adopt the same style. While the new engineer for Kimi Antonelli is yet to look for who would race along George Russell, whose current engineer is Marcus Dudley.
Antonelli has been considered as the next successor of Hamilton by Mercedes, after he impressed in the test programme, the signing news would be announced probably at the Italian Grand Prix, the home of Antonelli, as a signing ceremony would take place.
Lewis Hamilton’s transfer to Ferrari
Widely known as the most shocking driver moves in F1 history, is none other than Lewis Hamilton moving from Mercedes to Ferrari with a multi year contract. Hamilton was supposed to remain with Mercedes till 2025, but he activated a release clause. Between 2014-2021, he won seven Driver titles and six Constructor titles with Mercedes.
He said that he was fortunate enough to drive for Mercedes and winning titles and now he’ll complete his other dream to drive for Red Ferrari. Since 2022, Mercedes has failed to produce a race winning car and that has somehow disappointed Hamilton, who looked for another way to win his 8th driver title.
