For Lewis Hamilton, his outfits at the Abu Dhabi GP mirrored the huge team switch he was about to make, but that did not sit well with Nico Rosberg.

Abu Dhabi marked the conclusion of Hamilton’s 12th and final season as a Mercedes driver – Hamilton delivering an excellent recovery drive to P4 – with his multi-year deal to join Ferrari from F1 2025 already agreed ahead of the 2024 campaign getting underway.

Nico Rosberg calls Lewis Hamilton outfits ‘inappropriate’

As a Mercedes driver, Hamilton also found freedom to branch out into other interests and hobbies, one of those being fashion, which he often demonstrated in the paddock with some eye-catching outfits.

And Hamilton got creative in Abu Dhabi to symbolise his Mercedes to Ferrari switch, starting out in a white outfit, then all black, before transitioning to red and white and finally kitting himself out in all red ahead of Grand Prix Sunday.

Lewis Hamilton really planned his Abu Dhabi GP outfits to show the transition from Mercedes to Ferrari. 🤯#F1 #LewisHamilton #AbuDhabiGP pic.twitter.com/cLgqkNXHuV

— Sportskeeda F1 (@SportskeedaF1) December 10, 2024

However, Hamilton’s former Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg – a Sky F1 pundit in Abu Dhabi – did not approve of Hamilton’s approach.

The duo created one of the great F1 team-mate rivalries in their time at Mercedes from 2013-16, the battle intensifying from 2014 when Mercedes became the sport’s dominant force, with Rosberg retiring off the back of beating Hamilton to the 2016 title.

“I find this decision very strange and inappropriate,” said Rosberg. “It’s a shame.

“It’s his day, so it’s okay. They [Hamilton and Mercedes] celebrate and appreciate it, they still have a good relationship. But it’s a small point that I think is a shame.”

While Hamilton returned to winning ways in F1 2024 with victories at Silverstone and Spa, his one-lap performances led to a concerning “I’m definitely not fast anymore” self-assessment in Qatar, with a 19-5 defeat suffered against soon to be former Mercedes team-mate George Russell in qualifying trim.

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has already batted away any suggestions of concern from Ferrari’s side over Hamilton’s qualifying struggles, but Rosberg believes it will be weighing on Hamilton’s mind as he makes the move.

Hamilton will go up against Charles Leclerc at Ferrari, regarded as one of the fastest drivers over lap on the F1 grid.

“He is at a place where he’s saying to himself, ‘I’m not fast anymore’, and that’s really singled out to qualifying,” Rosberg explained on the Sky F1 podcast.

“The problem with our sport is that if you don’t qualify high up, you really struggle, even though he still seems to be at his very, very best in race pace – we’ve seen over and over again his racing pace is just still insanely strong.

“But when you qualify poorly all the time almost, and he says himself he’s just not quick enough in qualifying, then that’s something that was weighing on the shoulders so much during the end of the year, because you know you when you get beaten from your team-mate who’s younger, and let’s remember, the team-mate is not a World Champion, the team-mate is just a four-time race winner [three, sic.].

“And when you get beaten all the time, and in the case of Lewis, who’s statistically the GOAT [greatest of all time, ed.], then that’s really tough, and especially going forward.

“Now, he has two years at Ferrari, and he will 100% be very, very worried. ‘What if this form of mine continues, like, was it just the car at Mercedes, or was it something else? And what if this form of mine continues to Ferrari?’

“If it does, it would really be quite a painful adventure, I would say, because that’s not what Ferrari hired him for.

“Ferrari hired him to be on a level with Leclerc and fight for World Championships. So I think he will be very worried about that, and we can only hope that he finds back to his good old self with a reset at Ferrari and is, once again, the brilliant driver we know.”