Toto Wolff breathed a sigh of relief when Lewis Hamilton decided to leave Mercedes on his own terms. The team boss admitted to GPblog that he would’ve found it incredibly tough to push out his close friend and seven-time world champion.
Hamilton dropped the bombshell before the 2024 season that he’s joining Ferrari next year. While many thought he’d signed a multi-year extension with Mercedes in 2023, it was actually a cleverly structured “1+1” deal giving both sides an escape route after the first year. Hamilton decided to take it.
This wasn’t just random chance. Mercedes deliberately built this flexibility into the contract, with young hotshot Andrea Kimi Antonelli waiting in the wings and Hamilton approaching the later stages of his remarkable career.
“Very difficult,” Wolff told GPblog about the alternative scenario. “That would have been a situation that, for me, personally and for Mercedes, would have been something we would have dreaded, to have this conversation.”
## Does Toto feel sorry for Lewis?
Not a chance.
“No one should ever feel pity for Lewis Hamilton, because he’s a monster of a driver,” Wolff stated firmly. “Well, there were moments of not happiness with us, many times. I think all the reasons he had to go to Ferrari are still valid today. He needed a change of environment. And we needed a change of environment.”
Wolff gets why Ferrari appealed to Hamilton.
“We weren’t as competitive as we would have wished. Ferrari looked better. Every racing driver wants to race in Ferrari. He likes the color red anyway,” he explained. “The deal that was on the table was very good. And that’s, like I said, these reasons are still valid today.”
Hamilton now faces the challenge of going head-to-head with Charles Leclerc in a car that’s totally different from what he’s used to at Mercedes.
“It’s clear that there is moments of big frustration,” Wolff admitted. “But he’s had those frustrations with us as well. So he just needs another good race weekend or two and then we’re gonna see a very different Lewis Hamilton.”
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Toto Wolff during the press conference in Zandvoort
## Wolff on Hamilton’s ‘useless’ comment
Wolff didn’t hold back when discussing Hamilton’s harsh self-criticism after a rough qualifying session in Hungary, where the British driver suggested Ferrari should replace him.
“I thought that was wrong to say that and I told him that the same evening and again the next day,” Wolff revealed. “Did you ever hear Michael Jordan say about himself, I’m useless and that you change the player? No.”
He appreciates Hamilton’s emotional honesty, though.
“You’re wearing your heart on your sleeve, which is good, which is a fantastic character trait of his, that he speaks his emotion. And that makes him also the superstar he is, that he has those emotions and doesn’t hide.”
“But that one, I felt was just such a bad moment for him that he said that, because it’s simply not true.”
For Wolff, Hamilton’s incredible legacy is already set in stone, regardless of how his Ferrari adventure turns out.
“He’s gonna retire, nobody’s gonna ever ever know that he was at Ferrari at the end. Who thinks about the Schumacher and Mercedes time? That isn’t relevant for Schumacher’s career.”
