Lewis Hamilton says he expects to sign a new Mercedes contract before the first race of the 2018 season.
The four-time World Champion’s current contract is due to expire at the end of this season, but Hamilton says both he and the team are ‘committed’ to one another. Hamilton said:
‘Toto knows that I know that there’s no one better, so he’s not looking anywhere else, and I know there’s nowhere better so I’m not looking anywhere else.”
Lewis adds that he and the team have been ‘constantly talking to each other’ throughout the break, and also said that he’s not feeling any pressure from any other drivers wanting his seat.
Speaking at the launch of the W09 at Silverstone, Hamilton also expressed his gratitude to the team for allowing him to take his longest break in ten years. Over the winter, the Mercedes driver has enjoyed time in Japan, America and Europe, leaving him feeling ‘recharged’.
Meanwhile, Hamilton, who garnered negative press over the winter, said that the deletion of his social media content at the beginning of the year had always been planned.
The new Formula One season gets underway on 25th March in Melbourne, Australia.
After graduating from the University of Hull in 2015 with a First Class honours degree in English Language and Literature, Nicky Haldenby, a lifelong fan of Formula 1, founded the Lights Out F1 Blog in 2016. Now in its fifth season, the blog has become a firm fan-favourite, delving deep into the sport’s history books and lifting the cover on unusual F1 statistics. Nicky also writes at F1Destinations and GPDestinations. In 2017 and 2018, he wrote for Badger GP. Nicky is also the host of the F1 Rewind Podcast and can be heard as the resident stats man on the 2 Soft Compounds Podcast.