Official: Lewis Hamilton will be a Ferrari driver starting from 2025. Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari, it's all true.

Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari, it’s all true.
The unimaginable has happened: Lewis Hamilton is parting ways with Mercedes at the end of 2024 and will become a driver for Ferrari starting from 2025. The news was announced at 8:00 by the Brackley team and ten minutes later by the Scuderia in Maranello.

The seven-time champion has utilized an exit clause from the contract that initially had a deadline of 2025, as confirmed by the team with which he won six world championships.

Mercedes statement:
“The Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team and Lewis Hamilton will part ways at the end of the 2024 season,” reads the Mercedes statement. “Lewis has activated a release clause in the contract announced last August, and this season will be his last driving for the Silver Arrows. The news concludes what is currently a 17-year relationship in F1 with Mercedes-Benz and an 11-year partnership with the team.”

“The Scuderia Ferrari is pleased to announce that Lewis Hamilton will join the team from the 2025 season with a multi-year contract,” states the Scuderia’s announcement.

A historic move
This is one of the most galactic market moves in the history of Formula 1, certainly the most sensational since those involving Michael Schumacher, who switched from Benetton to Ferrari in 1996 and then returned to F1 in 2010 with Mercedes. Schumi’s moves, however, were preannounced by days (if not months) of rumors. Hamilton to Ferrari, on the other hand, was little more than a hypothesis, repeatedly denied by all parties involved despite mutual respect. The move brought home by President John Elkann and Team Principal Frederic Vasseur, in fact, was not even hinted at, especially since Hamilton signed a contract extension with Mercedes until the end of 2025 last year. All of this held true until yesterday when the first signs of a sudden acceleration of the operation arrived. Then, on this day in early February 2024, the official announcement. All in a hurry, forget about the 350 km/h of the track: Hamilton and Ferrari are like two lovers who, finally free, have run towards each other and kissed.