Lewis Hamilton responds to Toto Wolff’s light-hearted discussions about the Brit’s F1 future and that he could race for anything between 5-10 years more.
Amid the shake-up of the F1 grid for 2023, Hamilton is destined to stay back Mercedes but beyond that, it is still a question mark considering his age and how the team does in this era of racing. The start hasn’t been top notch with the team chasing performance.
Clearly, Red Bull and Ferrari have got the upperhand at the moment. Mercedes is thereabouts with regular podiums, but they don’t have the outright pace that the other two F1 teams have. The current performance is likely to play in the mind of Hamilton.
But for now, it looks like both the sides are ready to commit to few years at least. So much so that Mercedes chief Wolff joked that he could do 400 races and race for anything between 5-10 years where he has to win the eighth F1 title too.
“We talked a few weeks ago about how long our partnership can go and the figure discussed was about five to 10 years, so I think we can go to 400,” Wolff said. “Someone once said you have not just got to win the eighth – why not ten? Says he who is a second of the pace.”
While Wolff was light-hearted about the scene, Hamilton took it in the same spirit. But in serious mode, the Brit was positive about continuing in F1 for the immediate future at least if not the 5-10 years that Wolff joked about in his response.
“That’s a lot of races,” noted Hamilton. “I firstly just want to be grateful to get to this point. But I still feel fresh and still feel like I’ve got plenty of fuel left in the tank. So, I’m enjoying what I’m doing. I’m enjoying… really, really proud and enjoying arriving every day and working with this incredible group of people. I’m also enjoying working with the sport more than ever. We’ve got some great people leading the sport and having great conversations about the direction we’re going as a sport, so I’m enjoying it more than ever.
“I would say in that space, of course, I want to get back to winning ways and that’s going to take time, but I’m sure we’ll sit down at some stage and talk about the future. But again, just with our team, I always want to continue to be building. It’s one thing having races, but it’s also continuing the work that we do outside and doing more, which I think Mercedes and us can always do more, and we will,” summed up Hamilton.
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