The news that the seven-time world champion would leave Mercedes to join Ferrari starting from the just-finished season dropped like a bombshell in early 2024, leaving both him and Carlos Sainz with one year still to run, almost like a house divided.

Speaking with The Telegraph, Wolff described the situation as “like staying in the same household with a wife or partner that you know you will be divorcing in one year’s time.”

He later added: “I like change generally – I like the challenge and opportunities it presents. When Lewis resigned, I immediately started thinking, ‘What will we do now? Let’s embrace it.’ I think anyway that, after 12 years, we had started to annoy each other. I already had this young kid (Kimi Antonelli) in the pipeline.” 

In hindsight, the gamble on a rookie like Antonelli has proved overall successful for Mercedes, with the young Italian finishing his first F1 season just behind Hamilton and scoring two podiums along the way.

The Brit, on the other hand, endured a forgettable debut season with Ferrari, miles behind Charles Leclerc despite a late-season surge, and failing to secure a single podium.

With the 2025 season wrapped up, Formula 1 is ready to dive headfirst into a new regulatory era, with next-generation cars set to shake up the pecking order seen over the last cycle.

With such a drastic rule change, all teams will head into testing almost blind, facing cars that are largely unknown before any clear hierarchies can be established.

However, according to Wolff, the sport’s newest generation of drivers could hold a significant edge over veterans like Alonso or even Hamilton. Here’s why.