Lewis Hamilton commissioned a portrait of himself in the Mercedes car to be hung at their Brackley HQ as a parting gift for his long-time colleagues.

Hamilton called time on 12 years with the Silver Arrows but even as the post-Hamilton era begins, there will still be something to remember him by.

Lewis Hamilton commissions parting gift for Mercedes staff

Hamilton commissioned British artist Paul Oz to design an image of him in the car that could be hung on the walls of Brackley and it came with one request – make it about the car, not the driver.

“Now that it’s public knowledge and all 3000 Mercedes GP employees have received their prints of this, I can talk about it,” Oz posted on his Instagram page.

“Commissioned by Lewis himself as a departing present for everybody at Mercedes… class act!

“My only remit was that I should focus on the car rather than Lewis, and so I chose to paint an image from Monaco 2019, just a few days after Niki Lauda passed and the team ran a red halo to remember Niki. Lewis stuck it on pole then dominated the race.

“Incidentally this is therefore also the exact same day that Zak called me in to discuss creating a Niki bronze statue to stand next to his car on the MTC boulevard.

“To me, this is where the magic happens, when things come full circle, after spending almost two decades celebrating Lewis in paint, even after all that has happened in recent years, that’s a little tough to get my head around. This original oil painting now hangs in Brackley.

“No prints are commercially available sorry.”

Oz is a well-known artist in the motorsport world having most notably created the busts of Bruce McLaren, Ayrton Senna, James Hunt and Niki Lauda at McLaren’s base in Woking.

When Oz comes to paint Hamilton next, he will be swapping the silver for red with the seven-time World Champion already getting some laps in behind the wheel of a Ferrari.

The 40-year-old recently received a glowing endorsement from Juan Pablo Montoya who predicted that if the car is quick, “Lewis is going to win everything.”

“Lewis is mature enough to appreciate that in the short-term he is going to struggle a little bit, learning the Ferrari thing,” the Colombian racer stated.

“Charles is going to feel like he’s got the upper hand. But give it about six or seven races, and if the car is competitive, Lewis is going to win everything.”