Lewis Hamilton 'issued with Mercedes ban' as contract clause shackles Brit
Lewis Hamilton has been given clear instructions by Mercedes after leaving for Ferrari.
Lewis Hamilton has reportedly been issued with a ban to stop him from directly poaching Mercedes staff members to join him at Ferrari. The Brit is set to leave the Silver Arrows at the end of the season to take up a new seat alongside Charles Leclerc, but has been handed a significant blow to any hopes of reuniting with some of his key team members.
Planet F1 claim that there is a 'no-poaching' clause in Hamilton's contract at Mercedes, set out to ensure that he directly cannot take any staff members with him after a sensational exit to Ferrari.
Hamilton had spent over a decade at Brackley working with Toto Wolff's outfit and understandably has built up some very close relationships with colleagues that he trusts, most notably his race engineer Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington.
Bono has been by Hamilton's side throughout his entire tenure at Mercedes and was one of the first names mentioned with a potential move to Ferrari to join in the 39-year-old's footsteps.
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But the clause will hamper any hope that Hamilton has of reuniting with some familiar faces as he enters a new chapter of his Formula One career with a new team. Ferrari, crucially, are still able to negotiate with Mercedes over behind-the-scenes figures.
The likes of Bono and trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin may still end up at Ferrari, but Hamilton himself would have to recuse himself from any direct involvement in discussions or he would be in violation of the clause stipulated in his contract.
Such clauses have been utilised previously with Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel, who were unable to bring their engineers with them to McLaren and Red Bull respectively.
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It remains to be seen whether any of Hamilton's team are interested in joining him at Maranello in 2025, after Wolff confirmed that Bono was equally as blindsided as the rest of the world when the surprise announcement arrived last week.
“I think this is a discussion which everyone needs to have in the months to come,” Wolff said when asked about the prospect of staff leaving. “And as much as I’ve spoken with Bono already, when I told him [about Hamilton’s move] he said: ‘Is it April the first?’ That’s something which we will discuss in the future.”