30/03/2023
NEWS STORY
Despite his problems with the W14, and yet to sign a new contract, Lewis Hamilton vows to remain at Mercedes "until the end of days".
Even while he was still winning titles with the German team, sections of the media were forever linking Hamilton with other teams, most notably Ferrari. Indeed, even in recent weeks, as it appeared everyone wanted out of Maranello, according to that same media, the seven-time champ was still being linked with the Italian giant.
However, speaking to reporters in Melbourne today, Hamilton insists that e will see out his career with the Silver Arrows.
"I feel amazing about it," he responded when asked about his future at Brackley. "I continue to feel very much at home," he continued, "it's family.
"I see myself being with Mercedes until my last days, to be honest," he added. "If you look at the legends, like Sir Stirling Moss was with Mercedes until the end of days. That's been the dream for me, to one day have that, or, I have that, so just continuing on with that and just continue to build with the brand.
"I've got some amazing allies within the team, I've got great relationships here. I think just for me personally, as long as I continue to help the team, as long as I can continue to help drive the team forwards and help contribute, then that's where I want to stay.
"If there's ever a point where I feel I'm not able to do that, then it's time for a youngster to come in and take my seat. But I'm still feeling pretty young and in pretty decent shape."
In terms of the more immediate future, the Briton says he was buoyed by the Jeddah result.
"If you look at the last race, I think it was a decent result given the distance and the pace disadvantage we had in qualifying," he said. "We still managed to get fourth and fifth and we're second in the Constructors' Championship at the moment. We beat the Ferraris, who have definitely started with a better package than we have.
"This weekend I think I'm just hoping for some rain, if I'm really honest," he admitted. "It would make it a little bit more exciting for us from my point of view. I'm just hoping the gap isn't a second and I hope that we can just hit the ground running with the set-up."
The Briton was also keen to pay tribute to his teammate, while clarifying a comment he had made about their different set-ups in Jeddah.
"Obviously George did a fantastic job all weekend, put the car exactly where it needed to be," he said. "I struggled a little bit with the balance that I had.
"I think from my choice of words over the weekend I really want to reiterate how great a job he did. The thing that I was commenting on was there's one specific thing we can change in the suspension which you have to do over Friday night and when you make that change once you start FP3 you can't change it for the rest of the weekend. So when you do make that change you're basically rolling the dice, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
"I've done it in the past and sometimes it hasn't worked and sometimes it has. It worked great for George and he did a great job.
"The thing that I was lacking in the race was a lot of front end which that set-up gives you, so in hindsight that would have been great.
"However we took lots of learnings from it, I think race pace was quite decent, particularly in the second stint, and for us to move forwards and get a fourth and a fifth I think was great points for the team and a great result considering where we are in terms of performance deficit."
Check out our Thursday gallery from Melbourne here.