Announcements from the Ferrari Press Office don't come anymore low key. Yet 24 hrs later, the signing of Sir Lewis Hamilton had added over a billion dollars to the company's value. As a Mercedes fan, Ken Pearson ponders the switch and what it means for F1.

I've come to terms with it now. This is the move that none of us thought would ever happen anywhere other than an alternate universe. Sir Lewis Hamilton, the most successful Formula One driver of all time who has completed every single lap in the series with a three-pointed star ahead of him, will leave the team that delivered him six of his seven Drivers Championships...but not until this season is over.

If you are a follower of the F1-heavy accounts on Instagram you will see bogus F1 driver/team announcement posts all the time. Most of them can simply be batted away with a swipe and treated like the jokes that they are. However, around 8 am on Thursday February 1st, the F1 world exploded into action and anticipation with reports that Sir Lewis was poised to sign for Ferrari.

I read some of the early reports and quickly spotted the words "could" and "expected" and quickly disregarded them as clickbait commentary to drum up some interest and page views prior to the season getting started. That said, this was all happening far earlier than the usual reports - usually being credited to The Italian Media in some way - of drivers being "on the radar" of a team or "potentially negotiating a new contract" which tend to swirl around during the official Silly Season of the summer break.

It became the topic of conversation in my office and I foolishly described it as speculative nonsense and told my colleague that Hamilton would retire with his current team. However, this time both Sky Sports and Motorsport.com were running multiple stories and live update pages about what I had just termed as rumour mill overdrive. This had to be genuine.

If it was then it would surely be the shock move of the decade...perhaps the most surprising driver move since a young, one-time world champion driver would leave the team that he had been associated with since his karting days in favour of a team that hadn't been setting the world or the championship table on fire for the last few years. His name was, and still is albeit prefaced with a Knighthood, Lewis Hamilton.

The rumours kept on swirling, becoming more ridiculous, people noticed a certain two-digit number on a Peroni image to commemorate their signing as a sponsor of the Ferrari F1 team and came to their own conclusions and there was still no denial from either party - had the story been bogus then two teams, one driver and a gaggle of seething PR staff would've denied it by 9 am.

By 7pm it was official and confirmed by a statement from the Mercedes-AMG F1 team which is less than half the length of the post-race press release following the United States Grand Prix where George Russell finished fifth and Hamilton was disqualified. 

The shock of the breakup triggered by a release clause in the contract extension that was only signed last summer is understandable; for the last 11 years, Hamilton has been part of the team and absolutely instrumental in returning the cars and engines from Brixworth and Brackley to the top of the podium.

222 starts, six drivers' titles, 82 wins, 148 podiums, 78 pole positions, 127 front rows and 53 fastest laps. If you look at the stats of how the Mercedes-AMG F1 team has performed since 2010, the majority of points and silverware have all come from Sir Lewis.

It was no surprise that almost everyone expected him to return to winning ways with the team and see out his F1 career with a few more wins and hopefully another championship under his belt before completing his off-track wishes and desires like music production, acting and fashion design whilst being a lifelong brand ambassador for Mercedes-Benz. However, the pre-planned ending to the career of an all-time great which has been written by others is not what the main character of the story had in mind.

Hamilton himself has gone on record before as stating that he'd love to drive for Ferrari - who wouldn't? Ferrari and Formula One are mutually synonymous and it se