WAD’S THE BIG DELAY?
Horner: No announcement on Hamilton deal can only be due to ‘grotesque’ amounts of money
RED BULL set the pace and Christian Horner cut to the chase yesterday over Lewis Hamilton’s contract talks with Mercedes.
While his drivers left the rest trailing in their slipstreams in Monaco, Red Bull principal Horner claimed “grotesque” amounts of money were behind the delay in Hamilton signing a new contract.
The four-time world champion is yet to sign on the dotted line of a new deal estimated to be worth up to £40million a year. And sitting alongside Hamilton’s boss Toto Wolff, Horner said: “I imagine that a delay can only involve money.
“I should think it is such a grotesque amount of money that Toto’s talking about, it is probably what’s making his and Niki Lauda’s eyes water at the moment.
“Lewis has got an expensive lifestyle. He is a four-time world champion and I doubt he is cheap.”
Mercedes boss Wolff emphasised he remains confident that Hamilton will extend his stay beyond the end of this season.
He said: “We haven’t set a fixed date where we want to announce, but I can tell you I don’t see a reason why this shouldn’t be happening.
“This is a work in progress and we see no hurry to pressurise each other into signing a document that will eventually anyway happen.
“We’ve had very good conversations and there is no desire for him to leave the team, and we have no desire for us to lose him.”
Hamilton, 33, holds a 17-point lead over Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel in the drivers’ championship, but arrived in Monaco fearing he would be playing catch-up to both Ferrari and Red Bull. And so it proved in practice yesterday. Hamilton was fourth, half a second off Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, who was fastest in both practice sessions, with his team-mate Max Verstappen second, and Ferrari’s Vettel third.
Ferrari’s cars were the subject of scrutiny yesterday by governing body FIA for their energy recovery system, which may give them more power than permitted under this year’s rules.
Vettel said: “It’s normal that every now and then you have something popping up. This time for us... but in four weeks’ time it will be for someone else.
“Ultimately, it’s the FIA’s job to look after it and we trust them as much as the other teams trust them.”