Norbert Haug finds Lewis Hamilton’s departure from Mercedes “sad”, but still has a lot of faith in him in the Ferrari: However, the favorite for him is a different team – with a Mercedes engine.
It will be particularly painful for him to turn on the TV at the Formula 1 season opener in Australia and see Lewis Hamilton in red: As head of Mercedes motorsport for over 20 years, Norbert Haug was the face of the Stuttgart-based company in the premier class for a long time – and in this role he also promoted record world champion Hamilton, who has been through the Silver Arrows junior program since his junior days and has always driven Mercedes so far.
As is well known, this will come to an end in Melbourne: “For me, it’s actually very sad, I have to say. I never thought that Lewis would change again,” Haug makes no bones about his feelings regarding Hamilton’s move to Ferrari: “I’ve actually known him since he was 14 years old,” the German says on Sky about his long-standing protégé.
“We still have a great relationship,” says Haug, who last met Hamilton when he said goodbye to the record champion at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart: ‘I hadn’t seen him for years. And I don’t know, when you’ve worked with people, with racing drivers, for so long, it’s like the first day, like the last encounter was yesterday,’ says Haug.
He is also impressed by the fresh drive that Hamilton is radiating these days: “Anyone who thinks that at 40 he is now giving up and working less intensively is mistaken. He will give his all,” believes Haug, who therefore adds: “I absolutely trust him to deliver the maximum possible performance in the race. And if the car is good, why shouldn’t he get his eighth title?”
Haug sees ex-Team McLaren as 2025 World Cup favorite
Haug also attributes the fact that Hamilton has taken on a new challenge in the late autumn of his career to the Briton’s painful last few years with Mercedes:
“The last few years, since the lost title in 2021 – and that was really a stolen title, there’s no other way to put it, due to the wrong decision on the safety car back then – but there was a demolition afterwards,” says Haug, referring to Mercedes and Hamilton’s performances.
“The car and the team that it was before had to take a lot of setbacks, including last year. The victories that there were were just ones at low temperatures,” says Haug, who does not yet see his former team back at the top: ‘I think they are just as good as in the last race.’
As is well known, Lando Norris won this in Abu Dhabi 2024, and McLaren thus won the Constructors’ Championship. For Haug, the Papaya team is therefore the favorite: after all, according to Haug’s calculations, McLaren was almost a second faster than the factory team “with the same drive, the same Mercedes engine, and the same transmission.”
“And making up the second is the task at hand. With the same regulations, it’s not an easy task,” says Haug, but also ‘not an impossible task.’ Although he adds: ‘The McLaren was already a force to be reckoned with.’ That’s why the German explains: ”I think McLaren really has to be seen as the dominant force now […] I do think that McLaren has a certain supremacy.”
“They have developed fantastically. It’s just like old times, you could say,” says Haug, who celebrated his greatest successes with McLaren-Mercedes – and his last world championship title in 2008. At the wheel at the time: a certain Lewis Hamilton…
