Toto Wolff says Lewis Hamilton leaving "helped" Mercedes - "Everyone has a shelf life"

Lewis Hamilton volition permission Mercedes for Ferrari astatine the extremity of the play and Silver Arrows squad main Toto Wolff is gladsome to debar having to archer the seven-time F1 champion to determination on

Toto Wolff has claimed Lewis Hamilton's determination to articulation Ferrari "helps" Mercedes arsenic "everyone has a support life".

Hamilton's bombshell announcement backmost successful February rocked the sporting world but Mercedes main Wolff insists helium saw it coming. In caller publication 'Inside Mercedes F1', the Austrian told writer Matt Whyman the timing was unfortunate arsenic 2 apical candidates to regenerate him had already penned caller deals with their existent teams.

He said: "I perfectly had it connected my radar that Lewis would go, I conscionable could not recognize wherefore helium would alteration to different squad earlier we knew if we were going to beryllium competitive. It besides did not springiness maine immoderate clip to react.

"I had to exigency telephone our partners and I perchance missed retired connected negotiating with different drivers who had signed contracts a fewer weeks earlier similar Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris.

"[But] I similar the concern - it helps america due to the fact that it avoids the infinitesimal wherever we request to archer the sport's astir iconic operator that we privation to stop."

Hamilton signed a caller woody lone a fewer months earlier, committing him to Mercedes for the existent 2024 play with an enactment for different twelvemonth connected top. But the seven-time F1 champion, who volition crook 40 successful January, exercised his enactment to locomotion distant aft Ferrari made their attack and helium "could not get it retired of my head".

And Wolff has claimed that the woody was structured that mode truthful that Mercedes could chopped ties themselves if they needed to. He explained: "There is simply a crushed wherefore we lone signed a one-plus-one-year contract. We are successful a athletics wherever cognitive sharpness is highly important and I judge everyone has a support life, truthful I request to look astatine the adjacent generation.

"It is the aforesaid successful football. Managers similar Sir Alex Ferguson oregon Pep Guardiola, they anticipated it successful the show of their apical stars and brought successful inferior players that drove the squad for the adjacent years."

Wolff chose to bash precisely that, promoting 18-year-old academy operator Andrea Kimi Antonelli to spouse George Russell adjacent year. And portion the goodbye astatine adjacent month's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix volition nary uncertainty beryllium emotional, the Mercedes main insists helium holds nary grudge contempt his idiosyncratic affection for Hamilton.

He added: "This was a concern decision. We person enjoyed specified a palmy travel together, and present we person our ain objectives. This did not adjacent determination the needle for me. I americium thick-skinned - I person had immoderate beauteous pugnacious moments successful my life, and this does not compare."