A report from the Daily Mail is claiming that Ferrari are lining up a big-money offer to try and tempt Lewis Hamilton away from Mercedes ahead of next season.
Hamilton’s future has always been a subject of intense interest given what he has achieved in the sport and the talent he has, and when his contract comes down towards an expiry a fair bit gets written and said.
Indeed, that is the case once again with his Mercedes deal ending at the conclusion of this year, and rumours have swirled that a sensational move to Ferrari could play out for 2024.
Of course, it must be said that both Hamilton himself and Toto Wolff, Mercedes’ team principal, have been vocal in saying that they expect a deal to be effectively a foregone conclusion and only last week the British driver was filmed at a Petronas event mentioning his belief that together he and his current team will eventually win a record-breaking eighth world drivers’ championship title.
Nevertheless, until an extension between the two parties is agreed, the rumour mill will continue to turn and, as per the Daily Mail, Ferrari are now preparing to make Hamilton an offer that could be worth north of £40m to the seven-time world champion.
Obviously, if Hamilton did incredibly agree to join Ferrari for next season, that would bring one of Charles Leclerc’s or Carlos Sainz’s respective spells to an end with the Scuderia and the report claims that, in the case of the former, an effective swap deal would take place with the Monegasque joining George Russell at Merc in what would be a very potent line-up for the future.
Where Sainz would go would be less certain according to the report, however.
Ultimately, time will tell as to what happens in terms of Hamilton’s future and it’s certainly not the first time that he has been linked with a move to Ferrari.
The Briton has regularly stated he is a Mercedes man, though, and so it would be a huge shock to see him switch to the Italian team for the 2024 season and beyond.
He has also said that he feels he has several years left in him in F1, meanwhile, and so he’ll surely want to be driving for the team he feels is best placed to take on Red Bull and challenge for the championship in the years ahead.
