Lewis Hamilton Reaction After Peter Bonnington rejected Ferrari switch to stay at Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton will leave Mercedes for Ferrari at the end of the year, but will make that move without long-serving race engineer Peter Bonnington who has opted to stay

Lewis Hamilton said he would have “loved it” if Peter Bonnington moved with him to Ferrari, but insists he is pleased to see that his long-serving race engineer has been handed a Mercedes promotion instead.

As soon as Hamilton announced his planned Ferrari switch earlier this year, there was speculation over who might follow him to Italy. One of the Mercedes staffers most hotly tipped to join the seven-time Formula 1 champion was ‘Bono’, who has for many years been one of his closest allies.

A contract clause prevented Hamilton from approaching Mercedes colleagues about joining him at Maranello. But it was only this week, when news broke that Bonnington had signed a new deal, that it was confirmed that he would not be leaving with his driver.

Bonnington has also been handed a promotion to the new post of head of race engineering at the team. And though Hamilton admits he will miss working with his good friend, he declared himself delighted that Bono’s talents have been recognised.

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He told reporters at Zandvoort: “Was I hoping? I would have loved to have continued with Bono, of course. We have a great relationship. You certainly saw it at Silverstone – I love him, he’s like a brother. But I’m really, really, really happy for him.

“For me, I think it’s just about people doing… they have to do whatever’s best for you. Packing up and leaving, him and his partner, it impacts both of them, so they have to do whatever’s right for them. I knew it would be an unlikely scenario that he would go with me because it’s such a drastic change in his life.

“But I’m really happy that the team have acknowledged and made changes to his pathway on the team, so he can grow more with it. I think he’ll now be able to show us even more of the great things he can do. But either way, we’re going to be family forever. We’ve spoken about it and we just want to make sure we finish on a high note.”