British Formula One star, Lewis Hamilton, has confirmed he is leaving Mercedes at the end of the upcoming season.
Meanwhile, Ferrari announced Hamilton would be joining the team on a “multi-year contract” in 2025.
“I have had an amazing 11 years with this team and I’m so proud of what we have achieved together,” he said in a statement about leaving Mercedes.
“Mercedes has been part of my life since I was 13 years old.
“It’s a place where I have grown up, so making the decision to leave was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make.
“But the time is right for me to take this step and I’m excited to be taking on a new challenge.”
Meanwhile, Ferrari released a statement reading: “Scuderia Ferrari is pleased to announce that Lewis Hamilton will be joining the team in 2025, on a multi-year contract.”
The move comes ahead of the 2024 season for the seven-time world champion.
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Hamilton signed a two-year deal with Mercedes in the summer of 2023, however a clause in his contract allowed him to leave the team by “activating a release option”.
Despite signing a mega $127 million, two-year contract to stay, Hamilton’s name had already been linked to Ferrari for 2024.
The Monaco resident will replace Carlos Sainz, whose contract expires this year, at the Prancing Horse.
Meanwhile, the other Ferrari seat is occupied by Charles Leclerc, who recently agreed a new long-term deal.
Hamilton told ESPN in May last year – before signing his current Mercedes contract – that it would be untruthful to claim he “never thought about ending my career anywhere else”.
“I thought about and watched the Ferrari drivers on the screens at the track and of course you wonder what it would be like to be in red,” he said.
However, the 39-year-old concluded that interview by saying that Mercedes is “home” and he was happy at the team.
After winning his first F1 title with McLaren in 2008, Hamilton joined Mercedes in 2014 and won six more world championships.
Hamilton and Michael Schumacher are level pegging on seven championship titles each, while the British driver has the most Grand Prix victories in the history of the sport with 103 wins.
Mercedes team boss, Toto Wolff, said the link-up had been the most successful partnership between a driver and team ever in the sport.
“However, we knew our partnership would come to a natural end at some point, and that day has now come,” he said.
“We accept Lewis’s decision to seek a fresh challenge, and our opportunities for the future are exciting to contemplate.
“But for now, we still have one season to go, and we are focused on going racing to deliver a strong 2024.”
Former world champion, Damon Hill, told Sky Sports News that Hamilton was likely to still be smarting from the end of the 2021 season.
He lost the lead in the last moments of the final race after a restart that many considered to be controversial.
Hamilton has not won a race since 2021.
The new season for F1 begins with the Bahrain Grand Prix on 28 February.
