Toto Wolff says he has “no doubt” that Lewis Hamilton is “the greatest racing driver”, and adds Lewis asked if they could “do another 5 to 10 years”.
During his appearance on the Performance People podcast, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff revealed that Lewis Hamilton is thinking about extending his career for “another 5 to 10 years”.
“Lewis is totally mature and conscious about where he stands in his career,” Wolff said.
“He’s not being led by his emotions, like I’ve seen with sportspeople that think it can go on forever and trying to hang on to it.
“Lewis is rational and intelligent about it. He says ‘I know I have a shelf life as a racing driver’. Lewis knows that one day he will not be the best himself anymore. That hasn’t happened yet.
“But we’ve been talking about it. He said ‘I’d love to continue… do you think we can do another 5 to 10 years?’
“I think he has a few good years left in him and he will be the first one to say ‘I don’t think I can compete against a 24-year-old that is as good as I was or even close to how I was’.”
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Toto then talked about his relationship with the seven-time champion.
“I have no doubt Lewis Hamilton is not only the greatest racing driver, with Michael in a way, but he will also be successful in his own way, in a second or third career and reinventing himself.
“We’ve grown very close together over the last eight years. Grow is the right terminology because we’ve gone through difficult phases as well, and my learning was that I just need to try to provide the best possible framework for him in order to perform.
“And that might be also different than other people would perceive a relationship should be between the team boss and his driver. He’s really very intelligent and also socially intelligent.
“I’ve obviously dealt with him on our agreements three or four times now – and I have a real good sparring partner,” the Austrian concluded.