Will ‘Bono’ follow Hamilton to Ferrari? Wolff helps…

One of the first questions asked after Lewis Hamilton’s shock F1 move from Mercedes to Ferrari is who could go with him?

An obvious candidate to follow Hamilton to Maranello in 2025 is the seven-time world champion’s long-time road engineer Peter Bonnington, nicknamed ‘Bono’.

Bono was a key member of Hamilton’s inner circle and the two formed a seemingly unbreakable bond during their decade-long collaboration at Mercedes.

As a key part of Hamilton’s success at Mercedes, will Bono follow Hamilton to smooth the transition to Ferrari?

This is precisely the question that was posed to Mercedes F1 team principal Toto Wolff when he spoke to the media this Friday.

“This is a dialogue that everyone needs to have in the coming months,” Wolff replied.

“I already spoke with Bono, when I told him about Lewis’ decision. He said to me: ‘Is it April 1?’. He was as surprised as I was. In short, it’s something that We’ll talk in the future but I wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted to follow.”

After signing his two-year contract extension with Mercedes last summer, Hamilton said ‘Bono’ would be “stuck” with him.

“Yes, Bono is stuck! I’m very lucky,” Hamilton said at the time. “Again, it’s also a great story. I don’t think there’s ever been an engineer-driver duo for this long. We’re setting records.”

Hamilton is expected to reunite with French engineer Loïc Serra, whom Ferrari poached from Mercedes, and Fred Vasseur, who was at ART Sizable Prix when the Briton won the GP2 title in 2006.

“I have no doubt that Fred will be able to have a very good relationship with Lewis as boss, there is no doubt about that,” added Wolff.

“They have known each other for over 20 years, he raced for ART and Fred understands the spirit of road racers. He does things very differently to me, but his track record is very successful.”