|
The four times world champion and Mercedes have
been talking about a lucrative new deal since last year, with
regular assurances that it is on the point of being signed.
Despite talk of having something done before the start of the
season in March, five races have gone by and there is still no
announcement.
The Briton is otherwise out of contract at the end of the
season.
"Obviously we don’t want to lose him and I don’t think he wants
to go anywhere else. Everything’s going fine," team boss Toto
Wolff told reporters at last weekend's Spanish Grand Prix in
Barcelona.
"There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be racing with each other
for a few more years. We had other priorities in the last few
weeks. We weren’t happy with our car’s performance and we needed
to sort it out.
"And finalizing a contract is something you need to involve
yourself in and spend time and we both decided that we’d park it
for a minute where we were. But it’s almost all sorted and we’ll
pick it up at the right time," added the Austrian.
Hamilton started the season with pole position in Melbourne but
Ferrari won the first two races.
Australian Daniel Ricciardo then put Red Bull on top of the
podium in China, dealing Mercedes their third straight defeat
for the first time in the V6 turbo hybrid era that started in
2014.
Mercedes have won both titles for the past four seasons.
Sunday's race at the Circuit de Catalunya was something of a
reset, with Hamilton taking his second successive win -- after
Azerbaijan -- to stretch his championship lead to 17 points.
Mercedes also returned to the top of the constructors' standings
with their first one-two finish of the year and Hamilton finally
felt at one with the car.
Asked about contract talks, Hamilton said. "We've had all the
bosses here and there is not a single person in the team, or at
least the hierarchy of the team, that has any concerns as far as
I am aware".
"We do talk about it and we are not really far away from
finishing things so it will happen hopefully in the near
future."
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ken Ferris)
[© 2018 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2018 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
 |
|
