Sad times: Bono won’t be joining Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari next year

Time to break out the emergency ice cream and prepare to fire up the dating apps, because there’s been a breakup in the world of Formula 1.

Well, it hasn’t happened just yet, but Mercedes F1 have now confirmed that Lewis Hamilton’s race engineer Pete Bonnington has been promoted to the very serious-sounding position of ‘Head of Race Engineering’. That means Bonnington (or Bono for short) won’t be following Hamilton to Ferrari at the end of the current season. It’s okay to cry people.

Bono has been Hamilton’s race engineer since the Brit driver joined Mercedes in 2013, meaning he’s been in his ear for each of Lewis’s six titles with the Silver Arrows. That should give some indication of just how big a deal this is.

Hamilton’s shock move to Ferrari was announced earlier this year, with the 39-year-old signing a ‘multi-year contract’ with the Scuderia. Bono will of course continue to race engineer Hamilton for the remainder of the 2024 season. He’ll combine that with his new role and will continue to race engineer one of Merc’s drivers next year.

Of course, we know that George Russell will be one of those drivers, but Mercedes is still yet to confirm who will take the other seat. Who do you reckon it'll be?