Lewis Hamilton and Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington have been inseparable at Mercedes (Photo: Getty)
Sir Lewis Hamilton will be without one of his closest allies when he moves to Ferrari, with race engineer Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington set to stay at Mercedes.
In 2025, Hamilton will race for the Scuderia, pairing up Formula One’s most successful driver and team.
Ferrari haven’t won a title in 16 years, with team principal Frederic Vasseur in the process of assembling the best personnel on and off the track to end the losing streak.
Bono was one of those heavily-linked with moving to Italy having enjoyed a successful partnership with Hamilton as his race engineer at Mercedes since the driver joined the team in 2013.
Over the last decade he has helped the Brit win 84 races and six of his seven world championships, but he will play no part in the quest for a record eighth title.
A Mercedes spokesperson has revealed that Bono has signed a new contract with the Silver Arrows and has been promoted to head of race engineering from this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix onwards.
He’ll still be in Hamilton’s ear for the remainder of the 2024 season and could well be the race engineer for the 39-year-old’s replacement, which is very likely to be teenage rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
Bono perviously worked as performance engineer to Jenson Button at Brawn GP, helping the Brit win the 2009 title and stayed with the team after they were bought by Mercedes were he worked alongside Michael Schumacher and then Hamilton.
It is said that a clause exists in Hamilton’s contract which prevents him from directly approaching his Mercedes colleagues about joining him at Ferrari.
Discussing the pair’s relationship back in 2023, Hamilton said: ‘I’m incredibly grateful for Bono. I’ve had an amazing journey with him, I think we’ve got one of the longest, if not the longest standing driver-engineer partnerships that there’s been, and he’s been hugely integral to my success.
‘We’ve had an amazing journey together, we’ve supported each other on and off-track, through good and bad times, and I love working with Bono. He’s like a brother to me, a brother from another mother.
‘I think he’s probably one of the few people that can truly stand me, I would say, on the good and bad days – except for my dog – and how calm he’s able to be throughout a race, and how he’s able to help guide and help me navigate through a race. I don’t think there’s many people that can do that.’
It was previously reported that the seven-time champion and his new team were also likely to miss out on the signing of legendary car designer Adrian Newey who is leaving Red Bull, with Aston Martin tipped to hire him instead.
F1 returns from its summer break this weekend with the Dutch Grand Prix which Hamilton has been tipped to win having claimed victory in two of the last three races before the break.
