Angela Cullen was a pivotal part of Lewis Hamilton’s entourage (Image: Getty)
Jacques Villeneuve has advised against reuniting with former trainer and physiotherapist Angela Cullen when he joins in 2025, telling the seven-time world champion to ‘start afresh’ in Maranello.
When drivers move teams it isn’t uncommon for them to take key members of their entourages with them, but Hamilton will be without the likes of Peter Bonnington and Andrew Shovlin when he joins over the winter.
Hamilton lost one of the key pillars of his F1 entourage in 2023 when close friend and long-time personal trainer Cullen confirmed her departure from the series altogether. The duo worked together from the 2016 campaign onwards, and the New Zealander contributed towards four successive Drivers’ Championship titles.
Hamilton has regularly reinforced the impact that Cullen had on him during their seven-year stint together, but according to 1997 world champion Villeneuve, the Brit is better off starting with a clean slate when he moves to .
“When you do a big move you start afresh like is, it means you don’t go with your old engineer or physiotherapist like Angela Cullen,” Villeneuve told . “He has won with , he’s won with .
“So there’s no issue there. I have no idea how Angela and Lewis worked together. As far as I was concerned the driver always relied on his engineer, who was the person that was the closest to him on a race weekend.
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Lewis Hamilton has routinely praised Cullen’s impact on his career (Image: Getty)
“That was always the person that you, the driver, could lean on and that’s where you build trust. The physio is part of that small group of people that is in the driver’s confidence loop who they rely on.”
Cullen decided in early 2023 to call time on her spell with , much to Hamilton’s despair. She later arrived in IndyCar, helping fellow Kiwi Marcus Armstrong during his rookie campaign with Chip Ganassi Racing.
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Explaining her exit to the IndyCar YouTube channel, Cullen said: “So when I left Formula One, I thought I was moving away from motorsport. I retired actually. So I took a year off last year, and then I connected with Marcus Armstrong and I just started working with him on mental skills and things in the background.
“In the offseason, I was sponsored by SOS Hydration, which he was sponsored by as well, and they connected us. He said, ‘Do you want to come to a race?’ and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I’d love to come out.’
“Oh my God, like IndyCar just hit me, it is so much fun, and I just fell in love with it. The racing is incredible, the drivers are incredible, I was overwhelmed by the expertise of everyone in the paddock. So I arrived, and I haven’t left.”