‘Terrifying’ Toto Wolff meeting for Lewis Hamilton with Ricciardo ‘twist’ teased

F1 news: Lewis Hamilton admits to ‘terrifying’ meeting with Toto Wolff

Back in January, Lewis Hamilton was announced as joining Ferrari for the F1 2025 season.

The news came just a few short months after confirmation of a new contract with Mercedes, and Hamilton has told The Times how he was terrified to have to sit down with Toto Wolff to tell him the news he would leave for Ferrari.

“It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions from the moment I signed the contract — telling my boss, that was terrifying,” he said.

“But it is so exciting because I remember as a kid watching Michael [Schumacher]. Every driver watches that car and you’re like: ‘What would it be like to sit in the red cockpit?’”

F1 news: Daniel Ricciardo career twist teased by paddock insider

No sooner has Daniel Ricciardo’s F1 career seemingly come to an end but the rumours about a possible way back in have emerged.

Kym Illman, the leading F1 photographer and fellow Australian, has hinted at fresh hope for Ricciardo, teasing that a surprise development could arrive within “weeks.”

Asked if Ricciardo could still find a way back into an F1 seat, he told Australian television show The Project: “There might be a twist.

“I’ve just got some information late last night and all I’ll say is there might be a twist.

“It’s a long shot, but there could be a twist. I’m not 100 percent sure that the door is closed.

“There could be a twist. We’ll know in weeks.”

Catch up on the latest on Red Bull and Daniel Ricciardo

???? Inside Red Bull: Christian Horner and the other major players in Red Bull’s hierarchy

???? Daniel Ricciardo explains unexpected ‘Honey Badger’ nickname origins, 10 years on

F1 news: Jos Verstappen brands Max punishment as ‘ridiculous’

Following on from Max Verstappen being given a punishment of needing to do some “work of public interest” by the FIA after swearing during the Singapore Grand Prix press conference, his father has weighed in to express his discontent.

“I think that is the most ridiculous thing,” Jos told Autosport in reference to Max’s “work of public interest” order from the FIA.

Jos did not stop there, also criticising the FIA as an organisation.

“I don’t think the FIA is doing a very good job,” Jos claimed.

“But I won’t say too much about this!”

F1 news: Rob Smedley says Ferrari switch would be ‘dangerous game to play’ for Pete Bonnington

Rob Smedley knows more than most about the importance of the race engineer/race driver relationship, but the former Ferrari and Williams man says he believes the parting of Lewis Hamilton from Pete Bonnington after more than a decade together was the right call for ‘Bono’.

Bonnington is set to remain with Mercedes as Hamilton departs for Ferrari, stepping up into the role of head of race engineering.

“A driver like Lewis chooses your team. When a seven-times World Champion chooses your team to come and work at your team, I don’t think he needs to bring like an entourage with him,” Smedley told the Formula For Success podcast.

“And I always spoke about this publicly, both for Lewis himself, I think, but also for people like Bono, I think that’s quite a dangerous game to play to kind of follow the driver around.

“Because if the driver falls out of favour or the driver decides that after one year this is not for him, you know, he can’t take the entourage with him. So I think that Lewis has done the right thing.

“He’d obviously have ‘Team LH’ around him, his management and trainers and people like that, but, but I think trying to take engineers would have been a bit of a misstep.”

F1 news: Mohammed Ben Sulayem says ‘everyone makes money except the FIA’

FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem has spoken out in his usual forthright fashion on how the governing body continues to be the punching bag for everyone else involved in the organisation of F1 and its administration.

“We will never get the credit. Impossible,” he told Motorsport.com. “We’ll only get rubbish. That I know.

“When you look at it, everybody made money out of the FIA, everyone except the FIA. Everyone gets the credit, except the FIA.

“It’s true. When I took over, we had a running operating cost of minus 20 million. Why? Because we have our income as everybody. But look at the promoters… And good on them and I congratulate them, they are smart enough to do that.”