Oct 20, 2024; Austin, Texas, USA; Mercedes-AMG Petronas driver Lewis Hamilton walks the track ahead of the drivers' parade at the Formula 1 Pirelli United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas. Mandatory Credit: Aaron E. Martinez-Imagn Images / Aaron E. Martinez/USA TODAY Network via Imagn Images
According to Mercedes race team coordinator Stephen Lord, Lewis Hamilton left behind a special note in the same place he used to sit inside Mercedes’ motorhome, for 2025 Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli. Hamilton ensured he left behind motivational words for the 18-year-old junior driver who was taking on a new challenge in his racing career by replacing him. In addition, the seven-time world champion also left a hilarious note on the toilet wall to tell future drivers he was there at one point in time.
Given his 2025 move to Ferrari, it dawned upon Hamilton during the Italian Grand Prix weekend at Monza that that was his last European Grand Prix with Mercedes. Therefore, an emotional Hamilton not only left behind a heartfelt message for his successor at the team’s European motorhome but also something light and funny. When asked about an interesting story when working with Hamilton, Lord said on the Beyond The Grid podcast:
“It’s quite an interesting insight into the Lewis that perhaps people don’t see.
“Lewis had finished engineering. I think the engineers had left, so Lewis was upstairs in the room on his own. I popped up, grabbed a couple of bits, came back down the stairs and Lewis came down the stairs, ready to leave and head home.
“He got to the bottom of the stairs, and he stopped, and then he turned around and he went back upstairs, I thought ‘oh, he’s forgotten something.’ Didn’t think much of it.
“He came back down about 10 minutes later, and he grabbed a guy that works for the team, Carlos, who’s our head of race team logistics. And you could see that Lewis was really quite emotional, and he grabbed Carlos, and Carlos’ job, he is responsible for all of the trucks, the race base in Europe. He oversees the build and the transportation of these so Lewis knows that it’s Carlos’ thing.
“I was stood there, and he said: ‘It’s only just occurred to me, I’m never going to see that room ever again’.
“And he said, ‘I’m really emotional’. He said, ‘I can’t leave. I feel kind of sad to walk away from that room because I’ve been in that room for so many years and I’m never going to see it again.’ – And he was really quite touched that he was leaving it behind.
“Anyway, so off he went. I went back up to the room to pack his last few bits of driver kit and grab the helmets and everything.
“I walked into the room and on the wall there’s quite a long, handwritten note on the wall, and it was a note to Kimi, and it was basically welcoming him to his new room, and it was wishing him the best of luck, saying some really nice things about the team and how if you care for them, they’ll care for you, because they’re a great team. And I thought, ‘Wow, what a nice thing to do’.
“So I went and grabbed Carl and showed him, and he said, ‘Wow, that’s incredible’. And actually, now we’ve had glass cut, and it’s now covered in the room, so it will be there forever more.
“So Carl went off, I thought ‘I’ll just go into the bathroom and make sure that everything’s been packed away and we’ve got all we need’, so I walked into the bathroom, and next to the toilet, above the toilet roll holder, was ‘Lewis was ‘ere’ with a big smiley face. And I thought, ‘Okay, I like that.’”
