Mercedes confirmed yesterday that the team’s line-up will not change for the next two seasons; the contracts with Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have been extended through 2025. However, Toto Wolff, the head of the Stuttgart concert factory team, said that all agreements had in fact been reached long ago.
“We already signed everything in May, but we didn’t tell anyone about it,” he said cheerfully to Sky Sports. – Seriously, we really made agreements weeks ago, not only emotionally, but also formally. But lawyers needed time to check that everything was correct in the contracts.
Lewis has as many titles as Michael Schumacher, and the combination of such an experienced master with George Russell, who is still at an early stage in his career, may be considered optimal. They push each other and the team only benefits from that. Although they sometimes have different approaches to tuning cars, our drivers have a good relationship.
We have not negotiated with anyone else. I’ve always stressed that if we’re going to renew contracts with our riders, I’m not going to flirt with anyone on the side. This can only be done if something goes wrong – only then will I start studying the pilot market, but now I have not done this.
The contracts are designed for two years – this is quite a predictable period, because if you enter into longer-term contracts, for example for five years, then you always have to provide various additional conditions, the possibility to terminate the contract in the foreseeable future say. In that case we cannot give the driver a competitive car, etc. That is why we have limited ourselves to two seasons.
Lewis sees that the team is making maximum efforts, modernizing the car and trying to achieve improvements in all areas, and that we have a very efficient power plant – all this belongs to the physical categories, not the mystical ones. So while we have not yet reached the level where the car will allow both drivers to fight for the win, we still have some ‘physical issues’ to solve, but this will not affect Lewis’ level of motivation or energy and George.
We are not afraid that in two years we will have trouble with the formation of the team. Firstly, George Russell has been with Mercedes since 2017, when he joined our youth program, and the structure of his contract is different from the agreements with Lewis. Secondly, I believe in a simple fact: if cooperation is in the interest of both parties, then our main task is to build a fast car. That’s why we need fast riders.
In general, I adhere to the principle that a famous football coach once formulated: if a good player wants to move to another team, he is unstoppable.
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
