Fernando Alonso’s performances as a forty one-12 months-previous present Lewis Hamilton can race on for several extra a long time if he chooses, Mercedes group principal Toto Wolff thinks.

Hamilton disclosed in September he is arranging to prolong his Mercedes agreement, which is because of to expire at the conclusion of the 2023 F1 period. He will be 38 by then, and a new multi-12 months offer would see him racing in his 40s, some thing he formerly indicated he did not intend to do.

Nevertheless Wolff thinks Hamilton is able of extending his vocation into his fifth ten years as a number of major athletes have finished. “You can see today’s athletes are pushing the boundaries in phrases of age,” claimed Wolff.

“For me, Fernando is undertaking at a extremely superior stage. And you glance at, for me, the most effective athlete in the environment, Tom Brady, he’s on the ft in fact, he’s becoming tackled and throwing a ball and he’s forty three a long time previous.

“So as prolonged as you go on to glance right after on your own and acquire your cognitive senses, I feel he has several extra a long time in him and I’m fairly selected that is heading to be the situation right here in the group.”

Conversations about Hamilton’s previous agreement, a two-12 months offer introduced in July 2021, commenced through the prior off-period. Nevertheless Wolff claimed talks on Hamilton’s up coming agreement are but to start out.

“We have not commenced any talks,” he claimed. “We want to certainly complete the period and then test to discover some silent time in excess of the wintertime like we have finished previous time about. That practically commenced in the wintertime vacations and then lasted in excess of two months. But we have not finished that.

“But as I say, he’s a lot extra than a driver to us now. Despite the fact that we are not conversing about a vocation conclusion, it is also critical to converse about his purpose as an ambassador for Mercedes and the several sponsors we have and the implication he can have in our broader universe.”

Wolff, who owns just one-3rd of the Mercedes’ F1 group, produced it very clear Hamilton faces no competitiveness for his travel: “It’s a hundred% his seat.”

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