Lewis Hamilton rocked the world of Formula 1 earlier this month by announcing that he will be leaving Mercedes to join Ferrari in 2025.
Hamilton has driven with Mercedes since 2013, and in that time he won six titles with the team. Before this, Hamilton had been a driver with McLaren from 2007 to 2012.
However, Hamilton still has another season to play out under the Mercedes banner, and there is no doubt that the decorated racing driver will remain focused on striving for success in the buildup to his emotional farewell.
But will joining a new team prove to be a good career move for Lewis Hamilton? Fortunately, there have been plenty of high-profile cases of F1 drivers switching sides to inform us.
The team at SportsBoom.com has taken a deep dive into the statistics on some of the most high-profile side-switches in Formula 1 history, to establish how often changing teams actually pays off.
Lewis Hamilton
For starters, this is not the first time that Lewis Hamilton has changed teams. Having originally driven with McLaren, England’s most successful F1 driver actually improved his fortunes when he left McLaren to join Mercedes in 2013.
Pundits were surprised by Hamilton’s decision to join Mercedes at the time as the team had historically been less successful than McLaren, and some of the other teams that Hamilton had the option of joining.
During his six seasons with McLaren, Hamilton only secured one F1 Championship title and secured second place just once too. Whereas, he won six F1 Championship titles with Mercedes, all of which occurred during an eight-year period – 2014 to 2021 – where he never finished below second place too.
Ayrton Senna
Sometimes switching sides proves to be the best career decision an F1 driver can make – as F1 legend Ayrton Senna well knows.
Before his breakthrough Championship title in 1988, the Brazilian driver had driven with Team Lotus and Honda, never finishing higher than third place.
In 1988, Senna joined McLaren, where it only took him one season to earn his first F1 Championship, and he would famously go on to win three F1 Championship titles under the McLaren banner by 1991.
Sebastian Vettel
One man for whom switching sides really did not pay off is Sebastian Vettel. The German represented Red Bull between 2009 and 2014, where he won all four of his F1 Championship titles – in consecutive seasons too (2010 – 2013).
However, Vettel switched sides to Ferrari in 2015 and failed to replicate his success. He never won a single F1 Championship under Ferrari, despite a few near misses in 2017 and 2018.
Alain Prost
Another Formula 1 legend who experienced negative results after switching to Ferrari is Frenchman, Alain Prost, who dominated F1 in the 1980s, winning three F1 Championship titles, all as a driver with McLaren.
However, just one season after winning his third title with McLaren in 1989, Prost switched to Ferrari, only to finish second place. His second season with Ferrari went even worse as he finished fifth place.
Prost left Ferrari after just two years, but he had to prove the point that he had not totally lost it. After a brief absence from the circuit, he returned in 1993 to drive with Williams, where he would win his fourth and final Championship title.
Vettel and Prost’s experiences may make it look like Ferrari is the common denominator in dips in success for top drivers – which is bad news for Ferrari newcomer, Lewis Hamilton.
Michael Schumacher
However, Michael Schumacher enjoyed his best years with Ferrari, and he has experienced both the positive and negative sides of switching F1 teams.
Having originally driven with Benetton between 1992 and 1995, the German won two F1 Championship titles. Then when Schumacher joined Ferrari in 1996, it appeared at first to be a bad decision, as he finished third in his first season with Ferrari and in the second became the first and only F1 driver to be disqualified from a Formula 1 season.
However, Schumacher’s fortunes soon turned around as he went on to win five consecutive F1 Championship titles with Ferrari between 2000 and 2004. He remains the only F1 driver to win five titles back to back, and at the time he was the first F1 driver to win seven titles in total.
In 2007, Schumacher stepped away from the circuit to take up an advisory role with Ferrari, and would eventually enjoy a four-year absence from F1 driving.
In 2010, Schumacher got back behind the wheel but did not continue to drive with Ferrari. Instead, he represented the Mercedes GP Petronas team, where he stayed for three seasons, but unfortunately never secured a higher overall finish than eighth position.
You may be wondering if it is simply the case that F1 drivers happen to be representing certain teams during their peak years and the fact that they switched sides later in their careers means that the teams themselves have nothing to do with it.
Fernando Alonso
The Formula 1 career of Fernando Alonso contradicts that narrative. The Spaniard burst onto the F1 scene as a driver with Renault, where he laid claim to two Championship titles (2005 and 2006) early in his career.
However, Alonso briefly left Renault in 2007 to drive with McLaren for a single season, during which he could only finish third place overall.
When he returned to Renault he was unable to replicate his initial success, finishing fifth and then as low as ninth during his two-year-long second spell with Renault.
However, Alonso then joined Ferrari in 2010, where he just missed out on claiming a fourth and final F1 Championship win on three separate occasions. He laid claim to second place in 2010, 2012 and 2013.
So, will Hamilton’s new career as a Ferrari F1 driver be as successful as his Mercedes days? Unfortunately, the stats suggest probably not, but the racing great has defied expectations and broken countless records before, so why not again?