Lewis Hamilton contract: F1 future must be decided by end of the year, says Mercedes boss Toto Wolff

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff wants to secure Lewis Hamilton’s future before the end of the current F1 season.

Hamilton is on course to match Michael Schumacher’s record of seven world championship victories, and has been linked with a lucrative and sensational move to Ferrari over recent months.

Wolff’s own future had been the subject of speculation also, before the Austrian extended his deal with Mercedes earlier this month , and the 48-year-old wants to tie-up Hamilton’s new contract before the season finishes in December.

“It must be this season. You can’t start a new year without knowing what your driver line-up is,” Wolff told Channel4.

“Having said that, I’m pretty sure it’s going to continue like this. With the intensity of this season we just didn’t have the time to spend the day properly with each other because you want to recover in those in between.”

“We keep it pretty loose, and at a certain stage we’ve already said we’ve got to sit down and take the old contract out that we haven’t looked at since three years ago and say, ‘Okay, what do we want to change in that?‘ ”

Negotiations were stalled by the coronavirus pandemic, but back in February it was rumoured that Hamilton would be offered a deal worth £180million .

While Wolff did not go into figures, he was clear that Hamilton was “always the highest-earning driver and he always will be”.

“The deal is performance from our side, to bring him a car that is able to win, and the performance from his side to be the quickest driver out there, and he’s never failed to do that,” Wolff continued.

“And I hope we’ve never failed him either.”