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Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says Lewis Hamilton’s long-awaiting new deal to stay with the team for 2021 and beyond won’t be finalised until the Formula 1 world championship titles are sealed.
Mercedes is on the brink of clinching the constructors’ title and has, in Wolff’s words, a “99% chance that we are winning it this weekend”. But Hamilton cannot clinch the drivers’ championship until the next race in Turkey at the earliest.
While both Hamilton and Wolff have said throughout the season they expect a new deal to be finalised and have both referenced the high level of trust between them, it is unusual for a star driver’s future not to be signed and sealed with only two months of the year remaining.
But with other potential candidates for the drive signing up elsewhere and both parties reiterating their desire to continue together, the deal for Hamilton to race for Mercedes appears to be agreed in principle despite the fact there are clearly still details to be ironed out.
Wolff said that the titles had to be the priority and also suggested that the need to sit down and finalise the new deal could pose a COVID-19 risk, underlining the desire to ensure the championship are sealed before doing so.
“The last time took 10 hours, but then we headed down and we finished the day with pizza,” said Wolff when asked about the length of time it is taking to confirm a new deal.
“The truth is like we’ve always said, there’s a lot of trust between us and we keep saying ‘well we’ve got to find a day’, but I think the championship is more important – the drivers’ championship.
“And I completely understand that Lewis and Valtteri [Bottas] want to concentrate on that, and the constructors’ [championship] for us.
“And it kind of seems that we have to get that done and then find the time to sit down together.
“I don’t want to contaminate either of the drivers with COVID and if you spend so much time together, the worst would be if they miss a race or more.”
Wolff said recently that he wants to ensure the new deal is a long-term one as he does not want to be in the same position next year of needing to strike a new agreement during the year.
Hamilton himself has indicated he intends to stay in F1 for several more years, suggesting in July that “at least three more years” was his objective.
But he stressed today that the ongoing discussions about a salary cap to cover the two drivers to be introduced in 2023, expected to be set at $30million with any spend beyond that not exempt from the wider team cost cap, is not a factor in the delay.
“It’s nothing to do with that,” said Hamilton when asked by The Race if the salary cap was part of the reason a deal had not been concluded yet.
“I didn’t even know that that was being discussed.”
