Hi friends,
F1 is back and heading to the sunny beaches of the Netherlands. I will use this as an excuse to eat copious amounts of Stroopwafels and have “Links Rechts” by Snollebollekes on repeat.
Top story of the week: Pete Bonnington promoted to Head of Race Engineering at Mercedes; he will not be joining Hamilton at Ferrari in 2025
I was expecting to report on some driver news regarding one of the open seats today, but it appears you’ll have to wait a little bit longer for that. Instead, we’ll talk about one of the biggest driver moves in recent history: Hamilton to Ferrari.
Why is this important? The Hamilton move itself has been talked about at length, as has his partnership with his race engineer, Pete Bonnington (aka Bono). Bono has been Hamilton’s engineer for 6 of his 7 championships, and the two have been a staple of F1 since 2013 – we all know the iconic “It’s hammertime” radio messages.
But at the end of this season, the partnership comes to an end. Bono will stay with Mercedes, while Hamilton goes to Ferrari. While it’s not unexpected, given that Bono did not hand in his resignation when Hamilton announced his move, it’s quite literally the end of an era.
The question is, if Ferrari can supply Hamilton with a race engineer of the same quality as Bono, who arguably has been instrumental to Hamilton’s on-track success.
The rest of the stories this week:
- Helmut Marko on Liam Lawson: “He’ll definitely be in one of our cars next year”
- Max Verstappen responds to the Kyle Larson “I’m a better all-around driver” statement
- FIA spokesman on change to asymmetric brake system rule: “There is no truth that any team was using such a system”
- Sergio Perez will have a new race engineer, as his regular engineer Hugh Bird goes on paternity leave
- Yuki Tsunoda still an option for Red Bull in 2025 according to VCARB CEO Peter Bayer
- Liberty Media is selling ~€700 million worth of Formula 1 stock to fund their purchase of MotoGP
- Investment group Emodrom will acquire 74.99% ownership of the Hockenheimring and will invest ~€250 million over the next decade to improve the track and facilities
- F1 has been enforcing their trademarks causing content creators to change their usernames
- Andrea Kimi Antonelli will do FP1 at Monza with Mercedes
- Robert Shwartzman will do FP1 at Zandvoort with Sauber
- Ticket resellers are returning thousands of unsold tickets to the Dutch GP
- Isotta Fraschini announce immediate withdrawal from WEC
- Nina Gademan will participate in the Zandvoort F1 Academy Race
- Meyer Shank Racing will move from Andretti to Ganassi in IndyCar
- Red Bull E-Sports sign two-time World Esports Champion Jarno Opmeer
- Prema / Iron Dames driver coach Luca Persiani has passed away
- Dirt racing legend Scott Bloomquist has passed away
That’s it for this week. Until next time, thank you for being here.
If you have any feedback, suggestions, or questions, send me a message on Twitter or via Buymeacoffee.
