Toto Wolff was 'fed up' with Lewis Hamilton and tipped to pull trigger before Ferrari exit

Lewis Hamilton will be eyeing his first victory with Ferrari when he takes to the tarmac at the British GP. Hamilton, 40, has won the iconic GP at Silverstone on nine seperate occasions, more times than any other driver, with his last triumph coming last year.

Since his big money move to Ferrari, Hamilton is yet to get himself onto the podium in a Sunday grand prix, but did finish fourth at the Austrian GP. He also won the Chinese sprint race. At Silverstone, the seven-time F1 champion will be hoping to get past the likes of George Russell, Max Verstappen, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri,all of whom have won races this season. One of those who may be anticipating a Hamilton victory could be Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff, who oversaw six of the Stevenage born star's world title triumphs. But, despite their historic achievements, F1 giant Bernie Ecclestone was convinced that Wolff had grown tired of Hamilton in the final years of their time together.

In 2022, Ecclestone told the Daily Mail: "Toto is getting a bit fed up with Lewis. I don't think he's trying, do you? Let's put it another way, Lewis doesn't seem bothered about losing.

"It's not like him. He has a competitive nature - but he's taking losing a bit easy for my liking. Lewis might sell his position to Toto. 'This is how much I am getting, I'll step down and give me half of what I would get.'

"Toto can go and do one of his magic deals, offer someone less money and keep £20m. Nobody needs to tell Toto this because he has already thought of it. Lewis would probably stop under those circumstances."

At the start of the 2024 F1 campaign, Hamilton announced he would be departing Mercedes at the end of that season to join Ferrari. His final year proved to be one of his most underwhelming, as he could only manage a seventh placed finish in the drivers' championship, leaving him 22 points behind Russell.

In November, Ecclestone suggested that one, or both, of Hamilton and Wolff had given up on each other, resulting in his low finishes. Despite the comments and the lack of results Hamilton had in his final campaign at Mercedes, Wolff recently backed his former star and urged people to not underestimate him.

Wolff told the Bloomberg Hot Pursuit podcast: "You don't unlearn driving that quickly. In 2021 he was great, then the regulations changed, and it got a little bit more difficult, but he was still performing on a very high level.

"And just by changing teams, suddenly you don't lose your skills. I think everybody needs to have a period of adaptation. Different car, different DNA of how that vehicle drives, a new engineering team that you need to start to work together then be involved with the continuous development of the car so it suits your driving style.

"It's an all-Italian team; he's a British guy parachuted in there - and that takes time. Also, we have seen a little bit of a pattern that Lewis at the beginning of the season, he needs to find that mojo and then the second half of the season has been always very strong. So don't ever write Lewis Hamilton off."