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The end of a final Mercedes season that's more emotionally complicated than Lewis Hamilton expected is finally upon the seven-time Formula 1 world champion and his team.
It was always odd that this farewell would have to be managed across an entire year, given Hamilton decided to leave and join Ferrari before the season even began.
“The first meeting with Toto at the beginning of the year was awkward, of course,” Hamilton admits. “So, it was awkward from the get-go.”
But a strange contrast has developed from there as there are two goodbyes being played out in tandem.
There’s the end of 2024, which has descended into such an on-track disappointment, Hamilton’s charge to second in the Las Vegas race being the obvious exception. Then there’s the broader Mercedes goodbye, something that both parties are taking seriously and is laced with sincere emotion. One ending elicits relief. The other, celebration.
“I anticipated it would be difficult, but massively underestimated how difficult it would be,” says Hamilton.
“And it was straining on the relationship very early on, took time for people to get past it. And then just for my own self, it's been a very emotional year for me.
“I've not been at my best in handling and dealing with those emotions. You've all seen the worst of me and seen the best of me, and I'm not going to apologise for either because I'm only human and I don't always get it right, and I definitely would say this year's been one of the worst in terms of handling that from my side, which I'll work on trying to be better at.”
The limp competitive end is bringing down a curtain on their time together in a sometimes bitter fashion. Hamilton does not want to keep driving this car. He wanted to retire in Qatar, he admitted that in the heat of the moment after a miserable Brazil weekend he wanted the season to end there, and he does not expect to end on a high in Abu Dhabi.
It’s a dead rubber for him and Mercedes with nothing meaningful to fight for in the championship – although Hamilton always catches himself eventually and both he and Mercedes want this to end with heads held high, and a final race weekend putting in maximum effort for each other.
At the same time, Mercedes and Hamilton are trying to focus more on the celebration of all that came before the more forgettable final chapter. That combination is inevitably difficult to manage. There is a tension that emerges even against the best of intentions.
But if things had truly busted between them, and there had been no interest in saying goodbye the right way, then Mercedes and Hamilton could have done an Alpine/Esteban Ocon and parted company already.
Hamilton has sounded like an early season end would appeal to him, and his replacement Kimi Antonelli would benefit from a headstart for 2025. It must say something about the substance of the relationship, and the commitment from both parties to do things the right way, that this was a non-starter.
Lewis Hamilton 🤝 Mercedes
— The Race (@wearetherace) December 4, 2024
245 down. 1 grand prix together to go.
Hamilton's entire Mercedes record at a glance... pic.twitter.com/ORTLHDiXtC
It’s hard to just toss aside 245 starts, 84 wins, 153 podiums and 14 championships, not to mention the deep personal narratives beyond the stats, just because the final chapter of a great story is unfulfilling. But keeping the bigger picture in mind while living out the frustrations of that final chapter is also a lot easier said than done.
“I hope the good and the highs far outweigh the negatives and how I've handled it or behaved,” says Hamilton.
“I just remember the good times. I've built some incredible relationships.
“When you're going through a season together with so many people, not only on those race weekends where you're riding the highs and lows together, but in their personal lives, through marriages, through divorces, through loss of family members, through cancer, through all sorts…You're going through these journeys with these people.
“It's a really beautiful journey you go on together. And being that it was so long, the emotions run so deep.”
That’s the kind of real stuff that Hamilton and Mercedes are trying to focus on, regardless of whether this weekend does produce a final flourish, or rounds everything off in unsatisfying fashion.
