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Lewis Hamilton will make a surprise transfer from Mercedes to Ferrari for the 2025 season, according to BBC Sport.
Multiple sources claim that an agreement has been reached for Hamilton, a seven-time world champion, to sign Charles Leclerc at Maranello from 2025.
Ferrari and Mercedes declined to comment.
Mercedes F1 staff found out about this in a meeting with team principal Toto Wolff and technical director James Allison on Thursday afternoon.
It is possible that this resolution will be officially announced on Thursday evening.
Hamilton, 39, signed a new two-year deal with Mercedes only last summer but he is set to leave after just one year. His contract is understood to have contained a break clause after one year, which Hamilton has chosen to exercise.
The option of Hamilton moving to Ferrari in 2025 was first reported in the Italian and Spanish media on Thursday. BBC Sport has since shown the move across multiple sources.
There have been on and off rumors that Hamilton has been moving to Ferrari for years. So far, they have been insubstantial, but several sources say that is different.
The Hamilton deal has happened quickly. Ferrari were in negotiations over a contract extension with Carlos Sainz, whose deal runs out at the end of this season.
But Ferrari chairman John Elkann discovered Hamilton was an option and secured his signature. The two are friends and have met socially several times in recent years.
Hamilton won the last of his seven world titles in 2020 and signed his final two-year contract with Mercedes in August, extending his time with the team to thirteen years.
Ferrari admitted to holding talks with then-reigning world champion Hamilton in 2019 about joining them in the future.
Red Bull has dominated the game for the last two seasons since the debatable 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, when Hamilton lost out to Max Verstappen after former FIA race director Michael Masi ignored the rules by implementing a generation of safety cars at the end of the race.
Since then, he has walked the path to avenge what he considers an injustice and win his eighth title.
At the end of last season, Hamilton was ambiguous about his confidence in Mercedes’ ability to bounce back from two difficult seasons and challenge Red Bull.
In an interview with BBC Sport and other determined media at the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi, he said: “We have a North Star now, something I don’t think we’ve had in the last two years. But getting there isn’t a direct line.
“I think we perceive the car a lot better. They’ve developed some wonderful teams in the background. So, naturally, I’m hopeful, but I’m going to hold my breath. “
Ferrari has also finished a couple of tricky seasons, with the two teams battling last year for second place in the constructors’ championship, which Mercedes narrowly won despite Ferrari being the fastest car at the end of the season.
Hamilton’s resolve will cause shocks in F1, such as when he decided to leave McLaren for Mercedes for the 2013 season.
At the time, many questioned Hamilton’s decision, but it turned out to be remarkably prescient: he and the team dominated F1 from the 2014 season onwards, making the Briton the most successful engine in F1 history.
The appeal of Ferrari, the sport’s most historic and evocative team, is strong for many drivers. So far, Hamilton seems immune to this: he has stated that he needs to spend the rest of his life with Mercedes, and the two of them have a number of projects together, adding diversity and racial equality.
But it turns out that the opportunity to spend the final years of his career driving for Ferrari is too smart to turn down: something that the idol of Hamilton’s formative years, Ayrton Senna, also contemplated before he died in an accident while driving for Williams at the 2017-1994 San Marino Grand Prix.
Hamilton’s decision will send the F1 driver market into a tailspin.
Mercedes will reportedly look for a replacement for Hamilton at the end of the season, while Ferrari’s Sainz will look for a new job.
And apart from Fernando Alonso, whose contract with Aston Martin expires this season, none of the most sensible and well-known drivers would have to sign for Mercedes along with George Russell.
Max Verstappen has a contract with Red Bull until 2027, Leclerc has committed to Ferrari and Lando Norris has also just signed a new contract with McLaren.
Hamilton’s move to Ferrari is one of the biggest – and most surprising – stories in F1 for years.
Hamilton has insisted he needs to spend the rest of his career and beyond at Mercedes, comparing his scenario to that of past Stirling Moss, who was a lifelong ambassador for Mercedes.
But things changed and Hamilton couldn’t turn down the lure of Ferrari, whose history, legend and mystery still appeal to any F1 driver.
Hamilton remains F1’s biggest star, as well as its greatest engine of success of all time, and his decision to leave Mercedes is a major blow to a team with which he signed a new two-year contract just a few months ago.
His decision is as big a vote of confidence in Ferrari’s team principal Frederic Vasseur – with whom Hamilton has remained close since working with him in the junior categories – as it is the opposite for Mercedes.
Both have battled Red Bull in recent years since the new regulations were introduced, but Hamilton will have to see something in Ferrari’s progress in the latter part of last season.
It is highly unlikely to know the reasons for this decision, or its consequences, without context.
Hamilton was seriously injured during the events of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. He believes he was denied an eighth world designation because race director Masi failed to comply with the rules with a working safety car at the end of that race.
Since then, he has been driven by a preference to avenge this injustice, even if he has not expressed it publicly.
With Mercedes, in 2012, his judgment was remarkable: he proved all those who doubted his decision to leave McLaren and embarked on the most successful era that an F1 team and driver have ever experienced together.
Have you already understood this, or have you made a resolution that you will eventually regret?
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