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Lewis Hamilton’s race engineer Peter Bonnington will not join the seven-time world champion at Ferrari next year, having committed his future to Mercedes.
Bonnington, known to most race fans as “Bono” from Hamilton’s radio messages, has worked with the Brit since he joined Mercedes in 2013.
The role of race engineer is one of the most important in F1 and Hamilton has won six of his seven world titles working with Bonnington.
Hamilton is moving to Ferrari next year and there had been speculation the likes of Bonnington would make the move with him.
Ferrari has already signed Mercedes pair Jérôme d’Ambrosio as its deputy principal and Loic Sera as head of chassis performance engineering.
But Bonnington has pledged his future to Mercedes having secured a promotion to head of race engineering.
Bonnington’s promotion will take effect from this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix, although he will continue to work with Hamilton until the end of the season.
Mercedes is still yet to confirm Hamilton’s replacement for 2025 although it appears set on elevating its academy wonderkid Andrea Kimi Antonelli from F2.
Helmut Marko has said that Red Bull stuck by Sergio Pérez because the team feels its car has become too difficult for him to drive and that a turnaround in form is just around the corner.
Pérez’s future was under intense speculation coming into F1’s August summer break and most inside the paddock believed he was set to be replaced by either RB’s Daniel Ricciardo or Red Bull reserve driver Liam Lawson.
Following a meeting after the Belgian Grand Prix, Red Bull announced Pérez will remain Max Verstappen’s teammate beyond the break.
Racing advisor Marko hinted that the team is looking at changes it can make to help Pérez from the Dutch Grand Prix onwards.
“We believe that we can turn it round and make it more stable for him,” Marko told ESPN. “To be teammate to Max is not the nicest thing in Formula One. Checo has his merits, he’s won races.
“Our discussion was not just about drivers, it was regular discussions we had of what can we do to improve the situation? We have to try to make the car more easy to drive.
“The more difficult the car is to drive, the more the difference to Max comes out because he’s such an outstanding talent. If the rear steps out he won’t lift the throttle, he’s just, ‘yeah, it’s a little bit nervous,’ Checo says ‘it’s difficult’ or ‘its undriveable.’
“So to be next to Max is a different story. So we said let’s try to make the car more easy to drive, get more balance, which is also something Max wants, and the best thing is to keep going with Checo and hope that he … the main problem was this up and down.
“He had some very good results, very good performances, then the next day he was half a second off Max or so.”
