Nico Rosberg finds surprise motive behind Lewis Hamilton swapping Mercedes for Ferrari
Lewis Hamilton spent four seasons as Nico Rosberg's team-mate at Mercedes between 2013 and 2016
Lewis Hamilton left Mercedes for Ferrari partly because it meant having to fulfil fewer sponsorship commitments.
That is the claim of Nico Rosberg, the 2016 World Champion and Hamilton’s former teammate at Mercedes.
‘That was one of the reasons for Lewis Hamilton’s switch to Ferrari’
Hamilton shocked the Formula 1 paddock last year when he announced even before the first race of the season that he’d exercised an exit clause in his Mercedes contract that meant he could leave the team one year into his latest two-year extension – an extension he had signed only months prior.
Instead of spending a 13th season with the Silver Arrows, Hamilton would be fulfilling a boyhood dream of racing in red having signed a multi-year contract with Ferrari.
The Briton joined Ferrari in a deal that was reportedly worth a staggering $446million as it stretched beyond his Formula 1 driving duties and into his Mission 44 organisation.
Hamilton, though, made it clear that he hadn’t joined Ferrari just to make up the numbers, on the grid or in his bank account, he wanted a World title which would be his record-breaking eighth.
“I’m here to win,” he said at the beginning of this year. “It’s crunch time.
“For me, I truly believe in the potential of this team.
“I really believe they can win multiple world championships moving forwards. They already have an amazing legacy, but during my time, that’s my sole goal.”
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But according to his former Mercedes teammate Rosberg, there may be more to the story as there is one thing Hamilton wanted less of – media days.
Speaking on the Sky F1 podcast, the 2016 World Champion declared that one of the sticking points in George Russell’s current Mercedes negotiations could be sponsor days.
He said: “I’m not allowed to say it’s painful for us [drivers] because everybody watching will be like: ‘Shut up. You earn so much money, all you have to do is go to a sponsor event, shake some hands, take some pictures, and I’m saying it’s painful’ – but it is really painful.
“It is really painful.”
Going on to reveal that the number of PR days would be as high as 60 per calendar year, he says Mercedes’ commitment to fulfilling those sponsor requirements in part enticed Hamilton over to Ferrari.
“That was one of the reasons for Lewis’s switch to Ferrari,” claimed Rosberg.
“Because Ferrari, they don’t use their drivers for sponsor days. They have such a strong brand that they don’t have to offer their sponsors much time with drivers.
“I heard numbers that in [Sebastian] Vettel’s time, it was 10 days that Vettel had to do and that was it.
“And that really, especially in the twilight of your career, is something that you just value so enormously, and that was part of Lewis’s reason to go to Ferrari also.
“It was part of the decision making.”
Hamilton had a busy pre-season with Ferrari, from photoshoots outside of Enzo Ferrari’s house to meeting fans and TPC [Testing Previous Car] and a few sponsor commitments.
But while Rosberg reckons the number of the latter was part of Hamilton’s reason for leaving Mercedes, Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur believes Hamilton’s most recent public commitment at Ferrari’s pre-Italian Grand Prix event in Milan actually boosted the Briton.
“I think the energy that he received from the Tifosi on Wednesday, Thursday in [Milan] was something very special for him,” Vasseur told PlanetF1.com’s Thomas Maher and other publications at Monza.
“I don’t know if it was expected from him or I don’t know what he was expecting from this, but it was something mega and I think this gave him an extra boost all over the weekend.
“Even tonight when he went to the fans to say hello and the Tifosi was something mega. I don’t know if you underestimate this or not, that we didn’t discuss too much about this, but I think, and even for me, each time that I’m going there I’m surprised.
“We didn’t do the race of our life, we were expecting to be at least on the podium, we are not, but they are still there, they are still enthusiastic, still pushing and it’s why I’m a bit disappointed that we were not able to give them a podium this weekend.
“But I’m really convinced that it’s part of the energy into the team and the positive energy around Lewis this weekend.”
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