Lewis Hamilton and Pete 'Bono' Bonnington's long association will come to a close at the end of this season. Mercedes have promoted race engineer Bonnington to end speculation around hiss future following Hamilton to Ferrari in 2025.

The pair are midway through their 12th season as a driver-engineer partnership, with Hamilton winning six of his record-equalling seven Drivers' Championships since signing for Mercedes in 2013.

But their story will end when Hamilton joins the Scuderia next year, as Bonnington is set to take up a new role with Mercedes. The Silver Arrows have promoted the 49-year-old to head of race engineering after almost two decades in Brackley.

The switch-up will not impact this season, meaning 'Bono' will continue guiding Hamilton through races for the rest of 2024. And Bonnington will also be assigned to engineer one of Mercedes' two F1 drivers next year.

George Russell will form one half of the driver line-up, while youngster Andrea Kimi Antonelli is the favourite to step into Hamilton's seat. It remains to be seen whether Bonnington teams up with Antonelli or takes over from Russell's current race engineer, Marcus Dudley.

Hamilton and Bono shared an emotional moment earlier this season when the seven-time world champion ended a drought of more than two years to win the British Grand Prix.

Back in 2023, Hamilton shed light on the nature of their long-standing relationship. "I’m incredibly grateful for Bono," said the 39-year-old. "I’ve had an amazing journey with him, I think we’ve got one of the longest, if not the longest standing driver-engineer partnerships that there’s been, and he’s been hugely integral to my success.

"We’ve had an amazing journey together, we’ve supported each other on and off-track, through good and bad times, and I love working with Bono; he’s like a brother to me, a brother from another mother.

"I think he’s probably one of the few people that can truly stand me, I would say, on the good and bad days – except for (my dog) – and how calm he’s able to be throughout a race, and how he’s able to help guide and help me navigate through a race. I don’t think there’s many people that can do that."

Hamilton moving on and Bonnington staying put means the pair only have 10 races remaining together, starting with the Dutch Grand Prix on Sunday.