Merc-Hamilton talks set for next week

Editor

Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton will renew contract discussions after Sunday’s Abu Dhabi GP with Toto Wolff hoping to “find a solution quickly”…

Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton will renew contract discussions after Sunday’s Abu Dhabi GP with Toto Wolff hoping to “find a solution quickly”.

Hamilton’s current three-year deal with the Brackley-based squad runs out at the end of next year, but the team have made it clear that they hope to retain him for a couple more years.

“We want him very much to stay for many more years,” Mercedes motorsport head Wolff is quoted as saying by Reuters.

“He’s great for the team, he’s part of the family, the relationship we all enjoy is more than just a professional racing relationship between driver and team. It’s on a different level.”

However, both parties opted to put talks on hold earlier this year so that Hamilton and team-mate Nico Rosberg can focus on the 2014 Drivers’ Championship.

Wolff added: “We did that very consciously even when the rumours accelerated around other drivers and our team. We sat down again and said “Should we maybe take those conversations forward?” and we decided ‘No, it’s not the best thing to do’.

“And so on the Monday or Tuesday after Abu Dhabi we will sit down and discuss and hopefully find a solution quickly.”

Hamilton ended his relationship with management company XIX Entertainment a few months ago and he looks set to handle his own negotiations.

“Lewis is a very intelligent and mature person now who knows more about Formula One than many other managers out there,” he said. “I think he can represent himself in a good way, he has good support from consultants he needs to have, be it legal or tax or whatever.

“He knows what he wants and is straight about it.”