Former Haas boss Guenther Steiner says there was “no need” for Lewis Hamilton to be emotional about leaving Mercedes at the end of the F1 2024 season.

Hamilton confirmed in February that he will join Ferrari on a multi-year contract from the F1 2025 season, ending his long and successful association with Mercedes stretching back to his debut season with McLaren in 2007.

Lewis Hamilton’s emotional Mercedes farewell over the top, says Steiner

The early timing of the announcement – which came less than six months after he had signed a two-year contract extension with Mercedes – resulted in the unusual situation of Hamilton spending the entire F1 2024 campaign with the Brackley-based outfit in the knowledge that they would be parting ways at the end of the year.

Hamilton cut an increasingly reflective figure as the end of his Mercedes career approached, telling media including PlanetF1.com at September’s Italian Grand Prix that the emotion of leaving the team has “been there all year” and “at every single race you turn up.”

Despite returning to winning ways with victories in Britain and Belgium, the F1 2024 campaign proved to be one of the most challenging years in the career of Hamilton, who was heavily beaten by team-mate George Russell in qualifying conditions.

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Russell outqualified his illustrious team-mate at 19 of a possible 24 races, leading Hamilton to concede at the penultimate race in Qatar that he is “not fast anymore.”

Hamilton signed off on a high at the season finale in Abu Dhabi, recovering from a poor grid position to finish fourth after a bold overtake on Russell on the final lap.

The seven-time World Champion concluded a post-season farewell tour with Mercedes last week, with Hamilton fighting back tears as he waved goodbye to the team’s workforce in Brackley.

Hamilton is expected to take a short break before officially starting work with his new team in late January, when he is expected to receive a first taste of Ferrari machinery by driving a recent F1 car the Scuderia’s Fiorano test track.

Appearing on the Red Flags podcast, Steiner claimed there was “no need” for Hamilton to get so emotional about leaving Mercedes having decided to join Ferrari some time ago.

He said: “He decided to go there. You don’t need to get emotional about that.

“He got all emotional about that, there was no need for that. He knew what he was doing when he signed the contract 10 months ago.

“It’s been a fantastic partnership. Lewis has done a lot for Mercedes, but Mercedes has done a lot for Lewis. It was a win-win situation.”

Hamilton’s move from McLaren to Mercedes proved divisive when it was announced at the end of the 2012 season given the latter’s lack of success after taking over the title-winning Brawn GP outfit at the end of 2009.

Hamilton has since gone on to become the most decorated driver in F1 history with Mercedes, equalling Michael Schumacher’s long-standing record of seven World Championships in 2020 before becoming the first man to surpass 100 grand prix wins and pole positions the following year.

Hamilton revealed earlier this year that he was told his “career was over” after joining Mercedes, arguing it has instead proven to be “the best decision ever made.”

Steiner claimed that he saw the logic behind Hamilton’s decision to leave McLaren in 2012, with the Woking-based team losing their status as a “real works team.”

And he credited Niki Lauda, the late three-time World Champion and Mercedes non-executive chairman, and then-team boss Ross Brawn for persuading Hamilton to sign up.

He explained: “At the time, I understood it.

“He wanted to get into a real works team and McLaren was a customer team – they didn’t have their own engine by Mercedes.

“It was time and obviously he took the right the right pick, he had a good feeling to move there.

“As I sometimes say: right time, right place. But you make your own decision.

“There’s a lot of drivers who make the move to another team at the wrong time and I think he just got everything right.

“He saw something and was convinced about something, what Niki and Ross Brown told him what was going happen with the team.

“Because at the time, Toto [Wolff, current Mercedes team boss] was not this Toto he is now. Toto was the new boy on the block and I think his credibility came afterwards.

“But at the time, the credibility for Lewis was Niki and Ross Brown, in my opinion.

“It was a good move for him, I guess.”

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