Lewis Hamilton has admitted he finds it an emotional and surreal experience to be starting his last season with Mercedes after he announced he was to join Ferrari in 2025.

The British driver said he was proud and fully focused on this year at the launch of Mercedes’s new car, the W15, which he believes will represent a step forward for the team, at Silverstone on Wednesday.

Hamilton shocked his team early in February by revealing he would be leaving them for Ferrari in 2025. Speaking publicly for the first time since then, as the 39-year-old attended the launch of his final drive with the team he joined in 2013 and with whom he has taken six of his seven Formula One world championships, he observed it was a moment of some resonance.

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“It’s obviously been emotional, it’s very surreal to be here,” he said. “I came here in 2013, 11 years with the team, this is the start of my 12th. It is such a privilege to work with people to see the work they’re doing over the winter.”

Despite his impending move to Ferrari, Hamilton insisted he remained fully committed to Mercedes and was proud of the efforts they had made during the close season.

“The focus through the whole of winter training is getting the team back to where we once were,” he said. “We have had these difficult couple of years which have been really grounding for us. It has helped us regroup and really look at things.”

“I’ve always loved working with the team, particularly when there’s so many people, it’s a huge human element. Without those people working so incredibly hard, we wouldn’t get where we want to be. It’s great when we have a common goal and we focus on that on the whole year, it’s a real privilege.”

Mercedes have great expectations from 2024, having been soundly outperformed by Red Bull for the past two years. Since the regulation changes of 2022 Red Bull and Max Verstappen have dominated the championship, last year winning 21 of 22 races. Mercedes conceded they had followed a wrong design direction and have adopted an entirely new approach this season in the hope of catching Red Bull.

The team principal, Toto Wolff, was optimistic 2024 would represent a genuine step forward. “I can’t remember all of us being so interested in finally starting the car,” he said. “It’s a complete relaunch of the car, it’s very different. Mainly underneath, so many mechanical changes we’ve done which we hope will translate into more performance, predictability.”

Last year Hamilton and his teammate George Russell did claim second in the championship but were rarely in any contention for a win. Hamilton, who has not won since the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, has insisted the drop in performance was not behind his move to Ferrari but rather that he wanted a new challenge and to fulfil a childhood dream of driving for the Scuderia.

McLaren also launched their new car, the MCL38, on Wednesday, taking to the track for some shakedown laps at Silverstone. The team finished 2023 very strongly after a series of upgrades applied mid-season addressed weaknesses in the car with which they had begun the year and the drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri went on to return nine podiums to claim fourth in the championship.

The team are optimistic they have carried those strengths into the new season and will start strongly, rather than having to play catch up to the leaders.

“I have full confidence in the team that we’ll continue pushing forward off the back of the turnaround last season,” said Norris. “However, the true test of our progress is coming up when we put the car through its paces in testing, ahead of then qualifying and racing for the Bahrain Grand Prix.”

This year is the first in which McLaren will be able to take full advantage of their new wind tunnel and simulator, both of which are key parts in their plan to return to competing for wins in the near future.

Andrea Stella, the McLaren team principal who was the architect of last season’s turnaround, felt they remained firmly on course to return to winning ways.

“Going into this year, we look to build on the momentum of last season but are realistic in the knowledge that every team will have made progress,” he said. “We now have everything in place from an infrastructure, people and culture perspective so we continue to push forward and build on the work done to get us back to the front of the grid.”