Category: Formula 1

• British driver greeted by new F1 team at Maranello
• ‘There are some days you know you’ll remember forever’

Lewis Hamilton said he is realising his dream and starting a “new era” for Ferrari as he arrived at Maranello for his first official day with the team. The seven-time world champion posted a picture of himself standing in front of a Ferrari car at the team’s renowned base in northern Italy.

Hamilton, who announced his move to Ferrari after 12 seasons and six drivers’ championship wins at Mercedes ahead of the 2024 campaign, was greeted by team principal Fred Vasseur and chief executive Benedetto Vigna before meeting with various departments.

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• Belgian Grand Prix agrees rotational deal from next year
• Dutch GP at Zandvoort will exit the calendar

Formula One says the Belgian Grand Prix will be rotated from next year as the sport moves to introduce new races to the calendar. The deal means the fixture at Spa-Francorchamps – which is among the most recognisable circuits in F1 – will be omitted from the schedule in 2028 and 2030.

F1’s decision will free up room for new venues to be introduced – with Thailand, Argentina, Rwanda and a second race in Saudi Arabia all vying for spots on the schedule. It could also see the races in Imola and Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya rotated in the seasons to come. Both races are in danger, with a street round in Madrid due to be introduced next year.

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A jet-set lifestyle has riled critics who too easily forget the social endeavour and drive to overcome all obstacles on an unlikely journey from Stevenage to Monaco

As he turns 40 on Tuesday, Lewis Hamilton is hearing plenty of voices scornful of his decision, announced almost a year ago, to leave Mercedes, his home for more than a decade, and join Ferrari for the 2025 season. For a man whose record of seven F1 world titles is matched only by Michael Schumacher, and whose total of 105 grand prix wins is unequalled, he will step into one of the red cars for the first time knowing that he has everything to prove – and not just to the Italian team’s global army of supporters.

Obstacles and challenges are nothing new to Hamilton, who has been listening to criticism from the day he first ventured into a historically all-white sport, a mixed-race child whose father worked three and sometimes four jobs at a time to pay for his kart racing.

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• New Zealander steps in after 11 F1 races for RB team
• Valtteri Bottas rejoins Mercedes as a reserve driver

The New Zealander Liam Lawson has been confirmed as Sergio Pérez’s replacement at Red Bull for next season. It was announced on Wednesday that the Mexican driver had lost his seat after four years as Max Verstappen’s teammate after a disappointing year.

Lawson, who joined the Red Bull Junior Programme in 2019, steps in after 11 races for the RB team. The 22-year-old said: “To be announced as an Oracle Red Bull Racing driver is a lifelong dream for me. This is something I’ve wanted and worked towards since I was eight years old.

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• Mexican driver endured disappointing season
• New Zealander tipped to step up next year

Sergio Pérez has lost his seat at Red Bull after a disappointing season. Pérez, who joined the team in 2021, came under increasing pressure as the Formula One campaign wore on, finishing 285 points behind his teammate, Max Verstappen, as Red Bull surrendered their constructors’ championship title to McLaren.

Verstappen clinched his fourth consecutive drivers’ world title while Pérez finished eighth in the standings, failing to finish in the top five in his final 18 races for the team.

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• Former F1 team owner has bladder and prostate cancer
• Jordan, who is 76, discussed diagnosis on his podcast

Eddie Jordan has revealed he was diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of cancer earlier this year. The former Formula One team owner said he suffered with bladder and prostate cancer which spread to his spine and pelvis.

The 76-year-old, who ran his own team between 1991 and 2005, before continuing to work in the sport as a broadcaster, is also the manager of F1 designer Adrian Newey. Jordan compared his condition to the six-times Olympic track cycling champion, Sir Chris Hoy, who revealed in October he was terminally ill with prostate cancer.

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The Red Bull driver overcame an ‘undriveable monster', McLaren delivered and Lewis Hamilton ended win drought

With a fourth consecutive world championship, Max Verstappen deserves to be recognised as one of the greats, a place he has earned not least with this year’s title, his most hard-fought yet. After opening in a dominant Red Bull, he executed clinically to take four of the opening five races, keeping his head even as the controversy surrounding the team principal, Christian Horner, consumed Red Bull. However, McLaren’s upgrades at Miami launched a fightback from Lando Norris and after the Spanish GP with the McLaren a quicker ride, Verstappen had to buckle down and make the best of an unbalanced car that he described as an ‘undriveable monster’. He did so with the commitment and determination of an Alain Prost or Michael Schumacher. Repeatedly grinding out decent points between Spain and Brazil was vital and ultimately enough to ensure he closed it out, a champion’s performance. It was, however, one marked by an aggressive, uncompromising attitude on track that did him a disservice and for which he was penalised. That side of his character was not enhanced by his ill-tempered late-season spat with George Russell, nor the absurd dive he made on Oscar Piastri at the season finale in Abu Dhabi that meant nothing to him but could have affected McLaren’s championship challenge.

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• Mercedes team principal hails historic partnership
• Verstappen learns punishment for swearing in Singapore

Toto Wolff has bid Lewis Hamilton a heartfelt final farewell with what the Mercedes team principal called the most important message he has ever sent, as Hamilton prepares to join Ferrari next season.

Hamilton delivered a superb comeback drive at the season finale in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, after which he admitted his last race for Mercedes had been an emotional affair. The team are continuing to hold a week of celebrations for their driver and he will attend their bases in Brackley and Brixworth this week to say goodbye in person as they part ways after 12 years of unprecedented success.

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• Hamilton admits ‘turbulent year’ was a challenging one
• Lando Norris feels ‘incredibly proud’ of win for McLaren

Lewis Hamilton described his time with Mercedes as the greatest honour of his life after the seven-time champion bowed out with his final race for the team at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. After a superlative drive at the Yas Marina circuit, Hamilton also admitted that, after a difficult year, it was good to bid farewell on a high.

Hamilton drove from 16th to fourth in Abu Dhabi, another mighty performance to sit alongside what has been an unmatched partnership of success with Mercedes since he joined the team in 2013. He has taken six titles with them and 84 wins over those 12 seasons and at his last race before he joins Ferrari next year, he took a moment to contemplate it all at the close when he was given a special place to park on the start-finish straight alongside the top three, where he knelt beside his car.

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• Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri collide on first lap
• McLaren now have nine constructors’ championships

The wait has been long and ­torturous for McLaren but by the close of a victory for Lando Norris at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix it was worth it as the team celebrated their first Formula One constructors’ championship for 26 years – opening perhaps a new era for the team, just as another came to an end for Lewis Hamilton.

The emotional import of the moment was writ large at McLaren but no less for a visibly moved ­Hamilton, who brought his career at Mercedes to an end with an exceptional comeback drive from 16th to fourth, bowing out with the same determined panache that has secured him unprecedented success with the team.

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Lando Norris took the chequered flag at Yas Marina to help McLaren win their first F1 constructors’ title since 1998

• Any comments or thoughts? You can email Luke

GRID WALK TIME! Let’s go, Martin.

Brad Pitt is having a chat with Ted Kravitz about the F1 film he’s been working on for the past 18 months.

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• Hamilton 18th in qualifying thanks to dislodged bollard
• Mercedes’ Toto Wolff apologises for ‘idiotic mistake’

Bidding farewell with a flourish was the optimistic hope for Lewis Hamilton as he entered his final meeting with Mercedes at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix but even fortune, it seems, would not favour the British driver for his swansong where he finished 18th in qualifying.

His final hot lap was scuppered by the poorest of luck as he picked up a stray bollard dislodged by Kevin Magnussen, condemning his finale to probably be something of a slog from the lower reaches of the grid.

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• Mercedes driver said world champion threatened him
• Red Bull principal also responds to Toto Wolff ‘terrier’ dig

The Red Bull team principal, ­Christian Horner, has defended his driver Max Verstappen in the world champion’s increasingly ill-tempered feud with Mercedes’ George ­Russell and ­dismissed their very public falling-out as part of an end-of-year ­“pantomime season” before this weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Verstappen has already been crowned drivers’ champion, a ­success overshadowed at this finale by the spat he is now embroiled in with Russell. Their ­altercation ramped up in Abu Dhabi when the British driver accused Verstappen of threatening to put him “on your fucking head in the wall” and that it was time someone stood up to the Dutchman’s bullying. Verstappen has denied making the threat.

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