Formula 1 legend leaves team
Emotional video: Mercedes honors Hamilton
December 7, 2024 – 2:04 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
The seven-time world champion is driving a Mercedes for the last time. The team honored the 39-year-old with a moving event.
It’s the end of an era. After twelve seasons and six shared world championship titles, Lewis Hamilton is over at Mercedes. For a long time it was a dream marriage – after the dramatic loss of the title in 2021 to Red Bull and Max Verstappen, the “Silver Arrows” were only rarely able to win. From 2025, the Briton will drive for his former arch-enemy Ferrari.
Twelve years, seven titles – 39-year-old Hamilton has shaped Mercedes over the past decade. And the racing team has now honored “Sir Lewis” again before his last race in the “Silver Arrow” – with an emotional video.
The clip is titled “Imagine…” and “Thank you, Lewis”. “This is for all the kids out there who dream of the impossible: you can do it too!” Hamilton himself can be heard in an old audio clip, while highlights from his great career at Mercedes are shown. In between, children and young people keep saying: “Imagine you are the fastest on the planet.” “Imagine a superhero who looks like you.”
A particularly emotional moment in the video: “Imagine, your hero knows your name” – while in an excerpt the Formula 1 legend Niki Lauda, who died in 2019, hugs Hamilton. The Brit’s commitment against racism is also acknowledged: “Imagine being accepted as you are” – to images of the pilot kneeling in “Black Lives Matter”. At the end: “Imagine the whole world is behind you” – with jubilant scenes from his big title successes, celebrating fans, tens of thousands of supporters celebrating Hamilton at the racetrack.
The video ends with a quote from the young Hamilton before the start of his great career: “Imagine sitting in a Formula 1 car. That must be so overwhelming,” says Hamilton in an old recording, mixed with excerpts from the last few years : Hug with Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff, Hamilton in the kart, “Lewis Hamilton is seven-time Formula 1 world champion” after his last title win in 2020.
On Sunday (from 2 p.m. in the live ticker on t-online) at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Hamilton will be in the Mercedes for the last time. Next season he will drive for Ferrari as a teammate of Charles Leclerc.