Hamilton can stay and make history
Wolff confident Ferrari won’t lure his star man
‘WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN VERY LOYAL TO OUR DRIVERS’
MERCEDES have opened contract talks with Lewis Hamilton in an attempt to help him write the most successful story in Formula One history.
The Briton will aim to clinch his sixth world championship title in the Mexican Grand Prix today, a feat that would lift him ahead of Juan Manuel Fangio and behind only Michael Schumacher in the list of motor racing achievement.
To do that, Hamilton must outscore his team-mate Valtteri Bottas by 14 points or more at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez to turn the final three rounds of a one-sided season into laps of honour. At 34, the Briton probably has one giant contract remaining as he guns for titles seven and eight.
Mercedes are desperate to keep hold of him even if it means granting a significant rise on his current £40million-a-year salary. His contract runs until the end of next season, as do those of the other top drivers. They are all unwilling to rush into committing their futures beyond then with new regulations due in 2021.
But Mercedes boss Toto Wolff revealed: ‘Discussions with Lewis have slowly but surely started. I don’t see this coming to any sort of closure in terms of the 2021 driver line-up any time soon. It will go into next season.’
Ferrari are a potential rival suitor. Hamilton sounded them out before signing his current deal and has long understood the allure of the famous red cars. But in recent weeks he has spoken of his deep sense of loyalty to Mercedes — while the emergence of Charles Leclerc as the Scuderia’s new young hope may anyway preclude Hamilton from a romantic coda to his glittering career.
There is also the question of age. By the start of the 2021 season, Hamilton will be 36, only a year younger than Schumacher when he drove a Ferrari for the last time in Brazil in 2006. It is questionable whether the Italian team would want to begin a relationship with even a superstar driver at such an advanced stage.
‘This Ferrari thing has maybe been blown out of proportion,’ said Wolff. ‘Lewis has a clear opinion where he sees himself in future and we have always been very loyal to our drivers. But with 2021 everything is different and drivers and teams will be evaluating the options on the table. The car’s performance is what counts most for the top guys.’
Hamilton has shunted talk over his future to the back of his mind while he tries to win the title before the circus heads to Austin for the US Grand Prix.
One destabilising factor is the absence today and next week of the Hamilton’s race engineer Peter Bonnington. Ever present over the last 136 races, ‘Bono’ is back in Britain receiving medical treatment. His place is being taken by Marcus Dudley, who moves up one notch from his position as performance engineer.
Hamilton has secured the title here in the past two seasons without finishing higher than fourth. Today, he must make it on to the podium to have any chance of extinguishing Bottas’s mathematical involvement in what can only loosely be called a contest. Ferrari are to blame for the lack of competition, only finding form since the summer break. Hamilton has won just once since then.
Wolff said: ‘Ferrari have become the benchmark so I wouldn’t put any lack of recent success down to Lewis as a driver. He is still in a good place.’