Lewis Hamilton has revealed he had little time to make his decision to leave Mercedes and join Ferrari next year.
The Mercedes driver told his team late last month he would leave them at the end of the season to join Ferrari. Hamilton said he had little time to consider an offer from Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur before taking it.
“It happened very fast,” he told the BBC. “I’ve known Fred for a long time and for me, I was excited for a new year, but not really knowing what the future would hold, not really knowing how long I was going to race for, but knowing that I felt super-driven and excited to continue to race.
“The opportunity just popped up and I was like, ‘okay, I’ve got to think for a second’. I didn’t have a lot of time to think, and I had to just go with my gut feeling. And I decided to take the opportunity.”
Mercedes have powered Hamilton’s cars in every one of his 17 Formula 1 seasons to date. He said the decision to leave them for Ferrari was one to make with “your gut and your heart.”
“I didn’t speak to anybody,” he continued. “I didn’t tell my parents ’til the day of it being announced. So no one knew. I really wanted to do it for myself. Ultimately, I had to find out what was going to be the best for me.”
Hamilton has only moved teams once before in his career, when he left McLaren to join Mercedes in 2013. He said he will still root for his two former teams when he joins Ferrari.
“It was the hardest decision. When I left McLaren it was a very, very hard decision also because it was like my family. You feel such a part of the family and obviously Mercedes has been such a huge part of my life and we’ve achieved so much together.
“The thing is, I will always be a Mercedes fan, and we’ll always have this incredible history together. Even now, all these years after I’ve left McLaren, I always check where they are and I’m generally always supporting them. And that will always be the case for me here also.”
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Formula 1
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