Hamilton emotional before his last Mercedes race: "I couldn't control it!"
F1 News
An emotional Lewis Hamilton spoke at the drivers' parade for the last time as a Mercedes driver before the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The 39-year-old will move to Ferrari for the 2025 season after joining the German team in 2013, and for one final time, he will suit up and race, with celebrations to come afterwards to celebrate one of the greatest team and driver combinations in Formula 1 history.
Hamilton joined Mercedes for the 2013 season after starting his F1 career at McLaren in 2007, winning the world championship a year later. Six drivers champion titles and eight constructors championships later, he will now leave Mercedes for Ferrari, hoping to secure a record-breaking eighth world title at the Scuderia.
Hamilton "feeling really good" and "ultimately grateful" ahead of Abu Dhabi
Speaking at the drivers' parade at the Yas Marina Circuit before the Grand Prix gets underway, Hamilton first started speaking about his former teammate Valtteri Bottas, who is also taking part in his final Grand Prix with Sauber: "I'm excited for this guy, my old teammate here. He's just qualified so well. I'm going to try my hardest to catch him up!
"It's a beautiful day, it's very a strange feeling. I can't really put into words what I'm feeling at the moment. I think ultimately, just a lot of gratitude and hoping that today I can do something from all the way back where I am. I look at it as a positive, I qualified 18th, but I actually started 16th, so there's one positive, so I'm just ultimately trying to be really present, just trying to take it all in."
After the race, the Brit will be taking part in the post-race celebrations with the top 3 to mark the end of the partnership between himself and Mercedes, but there have also been some moments between himself and the team in Abu Dhabi: "On Thursday, they all got together upstairs in the paddock club, and I couldn't control it then. And I'm probably going to have a bunch of experiences like that this, maybe today and this week when I go back to the factory to see everybody to say my last goodbye. I'm not going to let you get me teary man!
"I would say this weekend has been really easy to be present, controlling your emotions, because they come in waves, right? That's probably been the hardest thing. But I feel really good and ultimately really grateful to everyone on the team for all these years."
Hamilton then concluded by speaking about his final race for the German team, and although he starts in P16, he is looking forward to moving through the field: "I'm not thinking about points because it doesn't make any difference to us. But I'm thinking about the quality of manoeuvres. I'm thinking about moving forward. That's the most important thing. And giving it my all, and working as best I can with the team on strategy, and just delivering the best performance I can from where I am."
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