The motorsport community was taken aback when Lewis Hamilton decided to leave Mercedes for Ferrari, yet Toto Wolff suspected something was amiss.
Wolff disclosed his suspicions arose after Fred Vasseur, team principal and his close confidant, went silent on WhatsApp for two days. Hamilton’s departure to Scuderia at the end of the 2024 season marks the end of his 12-year tenure with Mercedes.
Last summer, Hamilton renewed his contract with Mercedes for two more years. However, following a disappointing conclusion to the 2023 season, the 39-year-old chose to activate a clause in his contract allowing him to switch to Ferrari starting from the 2025 season.
This move caught most of the motorsport world, including his team at Mercedes, off guard. The official announcement of Hamilton‘s dramatic late-career change came less than a day after rumors of his switch began to circulate.
“No, he didn’t do a good job,” Wolff mentioned in Bahrain, when asked about Vasseur’s communication regarding the transfer. “We are friends since a long time and in the same way, we acknowledge that we are competitors on tracks.
“And so that is a balancing act that is not always easy because we have the duty and the obligation to perform to the best of our abilities for the interest of our team. And this is what Fred has done in that situation. I understand the rationale.
“Obviously, it’s not always easy in such a good relationship to know how to handle that, but it has no effects or no repercussions on the relationship that I will have with Fred.
“When I sent Fred a WhatsApp two days before he didn’t reply, so I guess I knew. But then, no, Fred didn’t tell me, Lewis felt that he wanted to tell me first.”
After concluding pre-season testing on Friday, Hamilton shared how Vasseur was instrumental in integrating him into the Ferrari team. Their collaboration dates back to Hamilton’s early career with the ASM and ART Grand Prix teams.
“Obviously I raced with him in F2 and we had amazing success in F3, and also in GP2,” Hamilton stated. “That’s really where the foundation of our relationship started.
“We always remained in touch. I thought that he was going to be an amazing team manager at some stage and progress to F1, but at the time, he wasn’t interested in that.
“It was really cool to see him step into the Alfa [Romeo] team. Then when he got the job at Ferrari, I was just so happy for him. I think just the stars aligned, I think it really wouldn’t have happened without him. So I’m really grateful and really excited about the work that he’s doing there.”
