"We're going to continue": Toto Wolff's major revelation to Lewis Hamilton on the Mercedes livery as he leaves the team
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff revealed that they would continue with the iconic Black livery even after the departure of Lewis Hamilton from the team at the end of the 2024 season. The seven-time F1 world champion would be leaving the team after a 12-year tenure with the Brackley-based outfit to join Ferrari from 2025.
During his stay with the German team, Hamilton has been an influential member and has contributed a lot to the brand in the sport. Apart from the on-track success, which includes eight consecutive Constructor's Championships and 84 race wins, Mercedes also ditched their silver livery to black to extend support to their star driver in 2020.
In a video uploaded on Mercedes on their official YouTube channel on December 19, Lewis Hamilton and Toto Wolff took a trip down memory lane by walking with all the cars ever since the German brand re-entered the sport in 2010.
During the conversation, the Austrian and the Brit spoke about the 2020 Black livery and said:
"It looked the best in black. Just looks like the Knight Rider, you know?" Lewis Hamilton said (6:50 onwards).
In response, the Mercedes boss revealed that they would be continuing with the iconic color.
"And the sponsors look good. That's why we stick. We're going to continue, It’s what you brought," Wolff said.
Mercedes team boss explains the brand's decision to support Lewis Hamilton with the black livery
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said that the team sought to imbibe inclusivity even before Lewis Hamilton's arrival. He added that the seven-time champion's arrival further pushed the team to be more diverse, which was reflected in their decision to replace the silver with the black livery.
During an appearance in an episode of the Masters in Business podcast in October this year, the Austrian talked about his upbringing and how it encouraged him and the members to welcome the diversity within the team.
"I think long before Black Lives Matter as a team, we have always strived to be diverse," Wolff said. "It was part of my upbringing that I saw what it means to be discriminated antisemitism was a strong topic in my upbringing in Vienna. And then when obviously Lewis was pushing very hard for more diversity in, in our population in the team, and we embraced that from the beginning."
"And then Black Lives Matter started with, you know, obviously the, the things that happened in the, in the US and he (Hamilton) said, shouldn’t we, do you think we should paint the car black? Which is a highly unusual question because the silver arrows are very much how the Mercedes are being called in the racing world."
While Mercedes did go back to their Silver roots in the 2022 season with its first iterations in the new aero regulations, the black livery made its return only a year later. In 2024, they had a mixture of black and silver with the latter taking space on the nose of the car.