Lewis Hamilton needs ‘fresh start’ at Ferrari with Bono staying at Mercedes

1997 F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve believes it’s important Lewis Hamilton ‘starts afresh’ when he switches to Ferrari for the 2025 season.

Hamilton will race in Ferrari red for the first time in March’s Australian Grand Prix.

And his first outing for Ferrari will be without trusty race engineer Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington.

Bono will not be following Hamilton to Ferrari, meaning the seven-time world champion will have a new race engineer for the first time since 2012.

The pair have a great relationship, with the partnership resulting in six world titles for Hamilton at Mercedes.

Bono also introduced the fan favourite phrase ‘Hammertime’.

However, Bonnington has been promoted to a new role as head of race engineering at Mercedes.

Speaking to Governor Sport, Villeneuve explained why starting completely fresh isn’t a bad thing.

“When you do a big move you start afresh like Lewis Hamilton is, it means you don't go with your old engineer or physiotherapist like Angela Cullen,” he said.

“He has won with McLaren, he's won with Mercedes. So there’s no issue there.”

At the start of 2023, Hamilton lost Angela Cullen - a key member of his inner circle.

Cullen was Hamilton’s physiotherapist for a number of years during his spell at Mercedes.

Villeneuve added: “I have no idea how Angela and Lewis worked together.  As far as I was concerned the driver always relied on his engineer, who was the person that was the closest to him on a race weekend.

“That was always the person that you, the driver, could lean on and that's where you build trust. The physio is part of that small group of people that is in the driver’s confidence loop who they rely on.”