Lewis Hamilton’s long-serving race engineer Peter Bonnington will not follow him to Ferrari after accepting a promotion at Mercedes.
Bonnington, who has been Hamilton’s race engineer since the driver joined Mercedes in 2013, has been named head of race engineering at the team.He will continue to serve as Hamilton’s race engineer for the rest of the year. Bonnington will also serve as a race engineer again in 2025. Hamilton confirmed before the season began he will move to Ferrari next year.
Hamilton and Bonnington formed the most successful partnership between a driver and race engineer in Formula 1 history. They have taken 84 race victories between them over their 11-and-a-half years together.
Hamilton won the world championship six times with Mercedes. However, as Bonnington was unable to attend the Mexican Grand Prix for medical reasons in 2019, he was not present when Hamilton won the title that year. Marcus Dudley substituted for him.
The pair scored their first victory together at the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2013 and won at least one race every year until 2022, when Mercedes suffered a slump in form as F1 introduced new technical regulations. That win-less spell lasted two-and-a-half years until Hamilton claimed victory at the British Grand Prix last month. He and Bonnington took another win three weeks later in Belgium, but finished second on the road to team mate George Russell, who was later disqualified.
Before working with Hamilton, Bonnington was race engineer to Michael Schumacher. He has therefore worked with the only two seven-times world champions in F1 history.
Mercedes is yet to confirm its driver line-up and engineer arrangements for next season. It is widely expected to promote Andrea Kimi Antonelli from Formula 2 to serve as team mate to Russell, whose race engineer is currently Dudley.
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stefano (@alfa145)
21st August 2024, 11:42
never knew he was also Schumacher’s engineer, it gets rarely mentioned. That’s one hell of a curriculum
Red Andy (@red-andy)
21st August 2024, 12:16
Schumacher’s comeback as a whole is rarely mentioned, and for good reasons.
M2X
21st August 2024, 15:17
Thanks to Schumacher and Ross Brawn, Mercedes was able to lay the foundation to become a successful F1 with the most impressive run of championships ever seen.
Nick T.
22nd August 2024, 3:08
Yup. Alongside Nico. I don’t think a team has ever had two such technically astute drivers at the same time. Rubens and Michael were also a pretty amazing pair in a different way as Rubens is famous for being able to figure out fantastic setups.
MichaelN
21st August 2024, 15:26
Not really, when F1 Beyond the Grid had their round-up interview with all the big Mercedes folks (aside from Wolff) they all singled out Schumacher’s contribution to the team.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
22nd August 2024, 5:18
Yeah, it wasn’t that great, and he left Mercedes with a beef after being replaced by HAM. Then Brawn left Toto because he couldn’t be ‘trusted’.
Mercedes success is the product of political wrangling and rule rigging. 2010 was the last best year for F1, what has been since is tire manipulation and controlled outcomes via the power unit and back door room discussions about which narratives to drive and who to let win.
HAM got thrown under the bus just like MSC, it is what it is at that team, and not shocking that his race engineer is not following him to Ferrari. Probably a good thing too, cause I don’t rate him highly at all, but what ever, HAM does a great job keeping things positive, but seriously, he could do so much better.
Out with the old, in with the new, marketing and demographics are king for Mercedes, not real performance, because that’s not allowed in F1.
anon
22nd August 2024, 9:27
About a 6 out of 10 in terms of generating a generic rambling delusional post today. Surprised you couldn’t work in a “sheeple” rant to make it sound even more like the inane ranting of a conspiracy theorist.
JMDan (@danmar)
22nd August 2024, 20:48
You have to be blind to not notice obvious events. Or biased. Or woke. Or on the left. Or a bot. Or don’t like others to express opinions contrary to your own. I suppose that encompasses the first, second and third possibilities quite nicely.
Kribana (@krichelle)
21st August 2024, 14:53
If you were in 2010-2012, you would notice that the engineer’s voice with Schumacher was Bono’s and even sounds similar to today when he works with Hamilton
Jere (@jerejj)
21st August 2024, 12:13
Pretty much a given ever since the announcement, given race engineers generally don’t follow drivers like personal trainers (except for Pyry Salmela in the recent past), & even Rob Smedley, Andrea Stella, or Ayao Komatsu didn’t change teams simultaneously to continue driver-engineer partnership.
Therefore, Ricardo Adami will become Hamilton’s race engineer, just like he became Sainz’s following Seb’s departure.
Simon
21st August 2024, 17:35
Thank you for your analysis (as usual) of the obvious (as usual)
Nick T.
22nd August 2024, 3:10
Why are you so obsessed with Jere? Did he steal your wife, dog and your job or something? Blame RF for deciding to write an entire article on something that is typical.
Jere (@jerejj)
22nd August 2024, 7:10
Nick T. Ikr & I haven’t done any of those, lol.
Nick T.
22nd August 2024, 22:05
Maybe you did and just don’t know it.
Sumedh
21st August 2024, 18:21
Yep.
A race engineer has potential to have a much longer career in F1 (compared to a driver) with multiple lucrative positions of leadership that he/she can have.
Tying themself to a driver is career suicide.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
21st August 2024, 19:17
There were two possible headlines: “Bonnington earns promotion” and “Bonnington and Hamilton to split in 2025”. Media usually choses the latter, as it earns clicks…
Another way of putting it would’ve been “Bonnington, who was never expected to leave, will not leave”. But that includes too much information in the headline…
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
21st August 2024, 22:16
Yes, personally, the only headline that would’ve made me open this article was the 2nd, so that worked.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
22nd August 2024, 9:43
@fer-no65 “End of record-breaking partnership confirmed” might have worked.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
21st August 2024, 13:37
Lewis will have been at Mercedes for 12 seasons? Time flies. A quick google suggests that he is currently record breaking, as nobody has done more than 11. *Michael & Ferrari again.
MichaelN
21st August 2024, 14:03
Hamilton has already driven many more races for Mercedes (236) than Schumacher did for Ferrari (180); obviously thanks to the longer seasons. He and Bottas were just four shy of also outdoing the Schumacher-Barrichello duo in terms of races as teammates (100 vs 104).
Indeed, Verstappen will soon surpass Schumacher’s tally as well, as he’s currently on 176 races with Red Bull.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
21st August 2024, 17:57
And as things are looking there’s a possibility verstappen will leave red bull soon enough to not pass hamilton’s merc record.
SteveP
21st August 2024, 18:57
From previous comments from Max, he’s likely to get bored of F1 before he breaks the season’s record, never mind any possible dissatisfaction with the team. Although the latter does look like a more likely reason.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
21st August 2024, 22:24
Yes, but there’s so many races nowadays that if he drivers 2 more seasons for red bull he would already surpass hamilton’s record, however the current performance trajectory and losing important elements like newey and wheatley could be a realistic possibility that they might lose him, especially to mercedes, who’s been pretty good lately and might need someone stronger than russell to really challenge.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
21st August 2024, 22:25
if he drives*
Actually I see that even if he stayed at red bull in 2025 and 2026 it would barely not be enough, since they’re not increasing races beyond 24.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
22nd August 2024, 5:24
bored of not winning perhaps. Max and his dad see their efforts like a property they are always trying to appreciate, that’s why Max’s dad ran his mouth in the media and tried to sabotage RBR, and C.H.
They are trying to sink RBR and run to Merc or whom ever. Who ever they think will have the best car. They knew they were found out, hence the whole garbage drama about texts and the media glomming on to that in order to protect the property that is Max V. They don’t care about the teams they work for, they have no loyalty, they are pure opportunists and liars. shameless to the nth degree.
RBR should get rid of oVersteppen and hire on someone with the loyalty like one Daniel Ricciardo. And destroy Mercedes in 2026 completely.
G (@unklegsif)
22nd August 2024, 9:33
@pcxmac
Red Bull would struggle to destroy most teams on the grid, with Ricciardo driving for them
G
Nick T.
22nd August 2024, 14:15
It shows how massively long these seasons are in comparison and how the length of seasons, the new points systems and the reliability also skew a lot of records now. Not that I care. Stats and records have always been highly deceptive.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
21st August 2024, 14:13
Long overdue promotion that couldn’t happen while Lewis was still driving. I hope he’s properly compensated and valued by Lewis and the team for his contributions.
Constantijn Blondel
21st August 2024, 14:29
Cue overly emotional pre-show interview with teary-eyed HAM.
Nick T.
22nd August 2024, 14:17
Smart money says 80% chance this occurs. That, or at minimum, a special Bono helmet livery.
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
21st August 2024, 15:58
Kind of a shame.
They had become a great double act (I don’t mean that in a sarcastic way) and obviously worked well together.
I will miss trying to read between the lines of their messages.
All we need to know now is, how do you say “These tyres aren’t going to make it” in Italian? ;)
Adrian Hancox (@ahxshades)
21st August 2024, 16:30
Something like “i miei pneumatici sono finiti, aiuto” my Italian is rough ad a badgers
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
21st August 2024, 17:59
He could also say “queste gomme son(o) finite!”, but it’s indeed a classic hamilton sentence, we’ll see if he ends up with an italian version.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
21st August 2024, 16:59
He’d be under investigation for not speaking American. Probably end up with penalty points.