Lewis Hamilton’s long-term race engineer Peter Bonnington will not join the seven-time F1 world champion at Ferrari next year after receiving a promotion at Mercedes.
Hamilton will end his 12-year stint at Mercedes at the end of this season after six world titles with the Silver Arrows. Bonnington has been the voice of wisdom over team radio for all of those triumphs.
Yet Bonnington, known as “Bono” in the paddock, will be Mercedes’ head of race engineering from 2025 and will not join Hamilton with his new venture at the Scuderia.
Bonnington, 49, will also be a race engineer for either George Russell or, more likely, Hamilton’s replacement next season.
Italian F2 star Andrea Kimi Antonelli, 17, is widely expected to be Russell’s team-mate in 2025.
Hamilton and Bonnington have a very close relationship, as shown by the race engineer joining the Mercedes star on the podium after his win at the British Grand Prix last month.
Yet Hamilton, 39, has a “non-poaching clause” in his contract which would have prevented him from luring Bonnington to Maranello next year.
Bonnington will report to Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes’ trackside engineering director, from next year as he focuses on the engineering of the cars on race weekends.
Max Verstappen’s engineer Gianpiero Lambiase has a similar joint-role at Red Bull, acting both as Verstappen’s voice over the radio and the team’s head of race engineering.
Hamilton is chasing three wins from four races this weekend as F1 returns following the summer shutdown with the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.