Toto Wolff has hinted that Lewis Hamilton could return to Mercedes in some capacity after his Ferrari stint, teasing the pair are “going to embark on plenty of adventures” in the future.

Hamilton is due to start work with Ferrari next month, having announced back in February that he will join the Italian team on a multi-year contract from the F1 2025 season.

Lewis Hamilton to return to Mercedes after Ferrari stint?
His move to Ferrari will mark the end of Hamilton’s long and successful association with Mercedes, having cemented their status as the most successful driver/team partnership in F1 history.

Hamilton claimed six of his joint-record seven World Championships with Mercedes, as well as becoming the first man to reach 100 grand prix victories and pole positions, following his arrival from McLaren in 2013.

Mercedes also have the distinction of providing the engines for each of Hamilton’s 356 F1 appearances to date, stretching back to his debut season in 2007.

Hamilton’s decision to leave Mercedes came less than six months after he signed a new two-year contract with the team, with the British driver triggering a release clause last winter.

Yet despite his impending exit, Wolff has said that Hamilton will always be “welcome” at Mercedes, opening the door to a role within the team when his driving career concludes.

Appearing on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast, Wolff said: “There is no such thing in an end to the relationship that Mercedes has with Lewis, neither what we as a team have nor I and Susie [Wolff, wife] personally. On the contrary.

“I think Lewis has decided to do something else for the last part of his career, which I understand – or I can understand – but he’s always going to be part of that family and always welcome in the family.

“And one day, maybe when the driving ends, there’s going to be plenty of adventures we’re going to embark on.”

Niki Lauda, the late three-time World Champion and Mercedes non-executive chairman, is widely credited for the signing of Hamilton, having visited the hotel room of the then-McLaren driver at the 2012 Singapore Grand Prix to persuade him to join the team.

Hamilton retired from the lead of that race with a mechanical failure, with his decision to join Mercedes announced ahead of the next race in Japan.

Wolff believes Lauda was not “given enough credit” for his role in bringing Hamilton to Mercedes, with the new recruit soon emerging as a true “team member” at Brackley.

He said: “Without Niki, there wouldn’t be any Lewis with Mercedes.

“I think Niki was so persistent in trying to convince him to join Mercedes and, particularly, he just scored the goal with him on that Sunday night in Singapore, where Lewis DNF’d with the McLaren and convinced him to join the team.

“Everything else just followed suit.

“I’m not sure Niki was ever given enough credit for that. Took no prisoners – what’s the salary you want? – and convinced the board of Mercedes to do this.

“Niki was always a very good liaison between the team and Lewis in the first few years, because he was talking as a three-time World Champion and had the respect of Lewis.

“Eventually it became the three of us and the whole team became one.

“We sometimes call drivers contractors: they come, you pay them well, if they don’t have the right car anymore and they’re getting paid well somewhere else, they leave.

“Lewis changed from a contractor to team member and that was because everybody else just embraced the notion of the team that we had then.”

The news of Hamilton’s move to Mercedes for 2013 was famously broken by Eddie Jordan, the former F1 team owner, who revealed at the 2012 Italian Grand Prix that team and driver had agreed personal terms on a deal.

In a recent appearance on the Formula For Success podcast, Jordan revealed he gained knowledge of the move as he would visit McLaren’s hospitality unit to talk to Hamilton on behalf of Lauda, whose connections to Mercedes meant he was not welcome in McLaren’s building in the paddock.

Jordan said: “Niki Lauda used to push me into McLaren to go and speak to Lewis, to do all the little messaging for him, because he couldn’t do it because of the connection [with Mercedes]. He was so strongly involved with Mercedes.”