The Seven-times World Champion has signed his first multi-year contract in quite some time as he seeks to secure his future within Mercedes. Clearly, Sir Lewis Hamilton feels his future is best placed with the Silver-Arrows as they approach the new 2022 regulations and beyond.
Written by Aiden Hover, Edited by Tanishka Vashee
Lewis Hamilton seems excited to continue his work with Mercedes, saying, “We’ve accomplished so much but we still have a lot to achieve, on and off the track. We’re entering a new era of cars which will be challenging and exciting – I can’t wait.”
The timing of this announcement is also important to note as it’s uncharacteristically early in the season for the Stevenage born driver to sort out his drive for the following year. Think back only to February this year when Hamilton announced his one-year deal with Mercedes as fans began to suspect he would retire from the sport. Fortunately, this never happened and his early announcement this time round is likely to allow him to fully focus on his championship fight with Max Verstappen and RedBull as well as to demonstrate his confidence in his Brackley-based team for next year’s aero shake-up. Verstappen himself has a contract until 2023 as both drivers want to keep their options open entering the new era.
Surely now that Hamilton is locked down within Mercedes, the second driver announcement will shortly follow. For months, fans have been predicting a Russell-Hamilton lineup or a Russell-Bottas lineup solely depending on whether Hamilton retires or not. However, we should not be so quick to assume George Russell will be given the promotion to Valtteri Bottas’ seat. Hamilton’s unusual two-year deal will likely allow him to have a say in his teammate and do we really think Hamilton wants to risk another Nico Rosberg teammate relationship?
Whatever happens to that second seat, one thing is for sure: The World Champion is to remain in Formula One for at least two more years and we could not be more excited to see how many more records he can break and set!