The motorsport world continues to hold its breath over the confirmation of F1’s most successful driver as contract negotiations appear stagnant.
19/01/21
Newly crowned Seven Time World Champion Lewis Hamilton is pencil-marked to drive for Mercedes for this upcoming season of Formula One action but an agreed contract is still to be signed on the dotted line.
Hamilton, who was knighted in the 2021 New Years Honours, broke the all-time win record in the sport and equalled Michael Schumacher’s record of Seven World Championships.
On the road to securing the 2020 Title, Hamilton and Mercedes both said they were in no rush to agree contract terms and were both more focused on getting the season wrapped-up instead. Negotiations were halted when the Brit tested positive for COVID-19 and was forced to miss the penultimate race of the season.
F1’s revamped 2021 calendar is to start in the desert of Bahrain on the 28th of March with three days of Pre-Season Testing set to commence on the 12th of March.
Currently, there are no other race seats available on the grid with the remaining nine teams already confirming their 2021 driver line-ups. And why would Hamilton want to leave Mercedes? The all-conquering Silver Arrows that Hamilton has been part of for eight record-breaking seasons.
In 2019, when Hamilton signed a two year contract, lasting to the end of 2020, he was reportedly earning more than $40 million annually which included bonuses which kept him at the top of the list of highest paid drivers.
However, there may be more to what is being said with recent media reports suggesting that there’s been a few instances on a couple of terms where Hamilton and Mercedes have butted heads.
Whether these instances could be on the subject of diversity, which Hamilton is trying to increase in the sport and at Mercedes or the topic of environment which the Brit is extremely passionate about, nobody really knows except the both parties involved.
The length of the contract is reported to be the latest sticking point with Hamilton wanting a longer contract than Mercedes expected.
Either Hamilton is waiting for Mercedes to add one or two zeros to his salary or a couple of the German manufacturer’s sporty AMG GT’s, we’ll just have to wait and see but expect a deal soon or it’ll be the biggest uproar Formula One have ever seen.
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