- British F1 driver Lewis Hamilton is focused on clinching an eighth championship with Mercedes
- He dismissed rumours of a £40 million ($49 million) deal by Ferrari
- His focus now is signing a contract extension with Mercedes
British F1 driver Lewis Hamilton is focused on clinching an eighth championship with Mercedes thereby dismissing rumours of a £40 million ($49 million) deal by Ferrari.
He said that his focus now is signing a contract extension with Mercedes since his current one will be over at the end of the 2023 season.
The eight-time Formula One champion spoke on the subject on Thursday in Monaco. He claimed that the shortcomings of his W14 car doesn’t stop him from signing a new contract with Mercedes.
Hamilton said that he has faith in his team and that a contract is almost ready. This leaves him with the task of focusing on the grid.
“My personal team are working closely behind the scenes with Toto and we are almost at the end of having a contract ready,” Mail Sport reports.
Lewis Hamilton and Angela Cullen (Photo by Mark Sutton / Sutton Images)
“Having a team to focus on that job is a much better position than I was in before. I used to do it all on my own and it was very stressful and I don’t have to do that anymore,” Hamilton adds.
Speaking of his current car, he notes that it lacks significance and that Mercedes has had the wrong car all through the season. He said that Mercedes has made some less-than-ideal decisions over the last two years, but the championship-winning spirit lives on.
He is glad that the team is currently working on rectifying these issues. Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff announced the launch of a new upgrade of the W14 at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Hamilton says the crew put in a tonne of effort to come with this update following the opening race in Bahrain.
The Mercedes boss maintains that the changes include a new front suspension as well as sidepod and floor revisions. These upgrades will appear in public for the first time at the Monaco Grand Prix.
The ‘zero-sidepod’ concept, which Mercedes pioneered when the new Formula 1 rules were introduced in 2022 has been shown to be ineffective.
Rival F1 team Red Bull has the sidepods albeit with a completely different approach to handling the airflow around the car.
Red Bull uses sidepods with a noticeable undercut to direct the air as smoothly and rapidly as possible to the back while also “sealing” the underfloor to guarantee the ground-effect venturi tunnels that produce downforce function as intended.
Mercedes is now doing away with this concept in a bid to enhance performance. Wolff acknowledged that Monaco’s special characteristics pose a challenge in predicting how well the new design will perform.
Lewis Hamilton Meditation. Photo/T3
The circuit is the slowest on the schedule and has a reputation for being narrow, winding, and bumpy. With its civil structure, Wolff points out that it’s too early to draw conclusive findings on the upgrade.
Meanwhile, while denying having spoken with Hamilton, Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur claimed it would be tomfoolery to claim that no team on the grid would want the seven-time world champion in their lineup.
Nevertheless, Vasseur said that Ferrari hasn’t had any discussions with Hamilton on the purported deal.
There were details indicating that Ferrari is offering Hamilton a £40 million ($49 million) deal to sign with the F1 team starting the 2024 season.
The Italian team is reportedly bent on singing Hamilton as he races for an eighth World Championship title.
Ferrari is ready to spend a fortune to sign the F1 superstar and give him the chance to surpass Michael Schumacher, who won five of his seven championships with the red team.
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