What Anthony Davidson finds ‘strange’ about Peter Bonnington staying at Mercedes

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Lewis Hamilton will not be the only key figure leaving Mercedes to sign for their rivals Ferrari in 2025.

The seven-time Formula 1 champion will be moving to Maranello on a multi-year deal after 12 incredible years with the Silver Arrows.

Hamilton will be bringing former Marussia and Lotus F1 driver Jerome D’Ambrosio to Ferrari as their deputy team boss. The Belgian has been Mercedes’ driver development director since last year.

The Brackley-based team’s performance director Loic Serra will also make the switch with Hamilton, as he is set to become Ferrari’s head of chassis performance engineering.

However, one name that will not be joining the 39-year-old is his race engineer Peter Bonnington, after he recently received a promotion from Mercedes to oversee their engineering department.

Anthony Davidson finds it ‘strange’ Peter Bonnington will work with another F1 driver

Speaking on Sky Sports F1 during FP1 in Zandvoort, Anthony Davidson commented on how ‘strange’ it will be for the pair to no longer work together as of 2025.

Bonnington, more affectionately known as ‘Bono’, has been with Mercedes since the rejoined the sport in 2010, serving as Michael Schumacher’s performance and race engineer.

The 49-year-old has worked with Hamilton since he joined from McLaren in 2013 and the pair have had unbelievable success. Hamilton has won six of his seven titles with the team and has gone on to break numerous records.

With the Brit’s pending departure, Davidson says it will be strange to see Bonnington working with another driver.

He said: “It will be strange for us, it will be strange for them, strange for the fans to see Bono engineering a different driver, whoever they will be. Kimi Antonelli or somebody else? Who knows.

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Lewis Hamilton’s move to Ferrari in 2025

“But yeah, it’s obviously a working relationship that’s been fantastic over the years for us to watch and it’s strange for me to think we’ll never hear the words ‘it’s hammer time’ after this season.”

Will Lewis Hamilton adapt to the switch to Ferrari?

Despite it being a childhood dream of his, Hamilton will be moving very much into unknown territory with his move to Ferrari.

The Brit will have hoped that Bonnington would have followed him to Maranello, but with his recent promotion, that now is off the table.

It is not yet clear who Hamilton’s engineer will be at Ferrari, and the 39-year-old will have to wait until the start of 2025 to begin building his relationship with said new engineer.

Hamilton will be familiar with team boss Frederic Vasseur, having worked together at ART Grand Prix when the former won the GP2 title in 2006.