© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
While preparing to make his move to Ferrari in 2025, Lewis Hamilton opens up on his historic 2013 switch from McLaren to Mercedes.
Lewis Hamilton will leave Mercedes at the end of 2024, after 13 years with the team, to embark on a new adventure with Ferrari.
However, he is no stranger to such big moves, as he has also made a big switch from McLaren to Mercedes back in 2013, after six successful years with the British team.
Now, ahead of his new Ferrari adventure, Lewis opens up on his previous big move.
“I was in Thailand at the time, in between races after Singapore, and that’s when I made the decision,” the Briton told the Performance People podcast.
“Pretty much everyone told me to stay. I was with a championship winning team. I was with McLaren, which had such a great history.
“Mercedes used to own half of McLaren. It was partly their team, but then they broke away and bought their own team and as they were trying to ramp up, they weren’t having a lot of success.
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“Mercedes were the fifth or sixth-best team at the time. They were often finishing out of the top ten, struggling to get into the top ten.
“As a world champion, people were like: ‘This is the worst decision you can make, this is not a great team.’
“All the pundits, all the media outlets, all the fans, everyone was like: ‘Career’s over.’
“But I went with my gut and my intuition, I was like: ‘I want to take the leap of faith and I’m going to go with it, regardless of what people say.’
“And it was the best thing for me. It went well and everyone’s like: ‘Oh, it’s the best decision ever made!’”
Lewis added he was driven by a new challenge to help a struggling team get to the top.
“I think it was just really that I wanted a challenge at the time and I love taking risks, I always have.
“And also I never liked doing the same thing everyone expects of me. That’s why I never did well at school.
“I meditated on it, I prayed on it, trying to think of what I wanted to do. And I just loved the challenge [of] going into a really uncomfortable position, getting out of your comfort zone.
“It’s what I love to do, because it’s nerve-wracking, but I love that feeling. That’s the feeling you get when you get in a Formula 1 car.”
It turned out to be one of the most successful moves in Formula 1 history, as the Briton proceeded to win six more championships with Mercedes.
“Moving into a new team, people I didn’t know, having to get integrated, all the changes you need to make, and then the growth process of building it and evolving it and growing towards a common goal.
“Getting there is the greatest feeling when you do eventually do that. I couldn’t believe that the decision I made was paying off: ‘Wow, it’s really, really happening, this is the right thing for me.’
“I was riding this beautiful wave,” Hamilton concluded.
