Hamilton says engineer Bonnington ‘like a brother’

Lewis Hamilton says he would have liked race engineer Peter Bonnington to join him at Ferrari next year if it had been possible.

The seven-time champion said Bonnington, who has been with Hamilton throughout his 12-year career at Mercedes, was “like a brother”.

But he accepted that moving to Italy was not the right choice for Bonnington – also known as ‘Bono’ – who has become well known as the voice who speaks to Hamilton during races.

“I would have love to have continued with Bono,” Hamilton said.

“We have a great relationship, but I’m really happy for him. It’s about doing whatever’s best for you.”

Bonnington has been promoted to head of race engineering. He will continue with Hamilton for the rest of this season before the Briton’s move to Maranello, and will also act as as a race engineer for one of Mercedes’ drivers next year.

George Russell’s contract continues to the end of 2025 and the Briton is expected to be joined by Mercedes’ Italian protege Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who is racing in Formula 2 this season.

Hamilton said: “Packing up and leaving, I can only imagine it would affect both him and his partner, so he had to do whatever is right for him.

“I knew it would be an unlikely scenario he would go with me because it’s such a drastic change in his life. But I’m really happy the team have acknowledged and made changes so he can grow more.

“He will be able to show people the great things he can do. But we are going to be family forever. We have spoken about it and we just want to end on a high.”

Hamilton spent the summer break touring around several countries in Africa and said it was overdue for F1 to host a race on the continent.

The last time F1 held a grand prix in Africa was at the 1993 South African Grand Prix, when the country was still under the racist apartheid system of government.

The track which hosted that event, Kyalami near Johannesburg, was in talks with F1 about reviving the race a few years ago but negotiations broke down.

Hamilton said: “We can’t be adding races and just continuing to ignore Africa, which the rest of the world just takes from.

“There is a huge amount of work [that] needs to be done there. A lot of the world who haven’t been there don’t realise how beautiful the place is, how vast is.

“And they probably don’t know what the (developed) countries are doing to those places in terms of holding them back.”

Hamilton said a grand prix would have a positive effect on the continent.

“Having a grand prix there would highlight how great the place is and bring in tourism. Why are we not on that continent?

“The current excuse is that maybe there is not a track that’s ready. But there is at least one track ready there. In the short term, we should get on that track and have it part of the calendar and then work on building up something else.”

F1 president Stefano Domenicali has said he is in talks with Rwanda about a potential race there.

Hamilton said: “Rwanda is one of my favourite places I’ve been to. I’ve done a lot of work in the background. I’ve spoken to people in Rwanda. I’ve spoken to people in South Africa. But that’s a longer project, Rwanda.”