Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has reaffirmed his belief that Lewis Hamilton will be extending his stay with the team past the end of this season.
A report from the Daily Mail earlier this week claimed that Ferrari were lining up a mega offer of around £40m to try and tempt Hamilton into signing for them ahead of the 2024 season.
Hamilton’s contract with Mercedes runs out at the end of this year and, as ever when it comes to the seven-time champion, speculation has been rife over his future.
Indeed, it’s hardly the first time he has been linked with a move away and, indeed, to Ferrari, but the consistent noise from the Mercedes camp and, in fairness, from Lewis himself has been that they will extend past the conclusion of this current campaign and continue their association with one another.
Wolff has regularly voiced that claim, too, and has once again recently done so in an interview with oe24.
“These rumours come up every two years when we have to sign a new contract,” said Wolff, “but none of this is true. We discuss normally, without any time pressure.
“I’m firmly convinced that we’ll find each other, there’s not a millimetre of doubt for me. I can’t imagine anything else. If we give Lewis a competitive car, he will win for a long time. Look at Tom Brady and what he was still capable of in his 40s.”
Hamilton himself has referenced Tom Brady in recent weeks as an example of what can be done by elite athletes in their 40s.
The Briton is not yet in his fourth decade but is not far away, and it sounds as though he feels fresh enough and motivated enough to be driving in F1 for several years to come.
That said, then, there is plenty of time potentially for him to achieve that elusive eighth world title and break the record he shares with Michael Schumacher for most drivers’ crowns, providing Mercedes give him a quick enough car to earn exactly that.
Merc are unveiling their long-awaited upgrades this weekend at the Monaco GP in a bid to try and close the gap to Red Bull, though it might not be until the Spanish GP a week later that we really see the impact they are having, given the unique configuration and challenge that is the race around Monte-Carlo.
