Formula One’s Lewis Hamilton to join Ferrari from Mercedes

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Seven-time Formula One champion Sir Lewis Hamilton is to join Ferrari in time for the 2025 season, ditching the Mercedes team that has powered his record-breaking career.

The British driver’s surprise move will unite the global series’ most successful driver with the only team that has competed in every F1 season.

The Italian racing group said on Thursday that Hamilton would be joining in 2025 on a multiyear contract.

The move highlights the pulling power of Ferrari, as well as Mercedes’ struggle to provide Hamilton with a car that can compete with Red Bull Racing at the front of the grid.

Ferrari has lured arguably the best driver in F1 history: no one has notched up more than Hamilton’s 103 wins, 104 pole positions and 197 podiums.

Born in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, Hamilton emerged as a go-karting champion. He began his car racing career in the 2001 and went on to become a household name at McLaren Racing, where he won the first of his world titles in 2008.

Hamilton’s looming departure from Mercedes comes after two difficult seasons for the Brackley-based outfit, which is jointly owned by German Mercedes-Benz Group, team boss Toto Wolff and British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos.

“We accept Lewis’s decision to seek a fresh challenge, and our opportunities for the future are exciting to contemplate,” Wolff said. “But for now, we still have one season to go, and we are focused on going racing to deliver a strong 2024.”

Hamilton said that leaving Mercedes had been “one of the hardest decisions” he had had to make, and thanked Wolff for his “friendship and leadership”.

“I want to finish on a high together,” he said. “I am 100 per cent committed to deliver the best performance I can this season and making my…