Lewis Hamilton ties himself to Mercedes – for an extra £100 million

Lewis Hamilton said he was confident Mercedes could match Red Bull within the next two years as he finally put pen to paper on a new two-year deal worth an estimated £100 million.

The new contract, which puts Hamilton on a par salary-wise with Red Bull’s double world champion Max Verstappen, was announced in Monza on Thursday as part of a Mercedes double unveiling, with team-mate George Russell also confirmed through to the end of 2025. It puts an end to one of the more torturous sagas in the sport.

Hamilton, who will be 40 by the time his new contract expires, had insisted all season that he is happy at Mercedes, stating repeatedly that it was only a matter of time before he signed.

But negotiations rumbled on for months as the two sides hammered out the finer details, including his salary and key clauses such as his sponsorship and PR commitments.

Although he denied it had anything to do with the delay, Hamilton was also almost certainly waiting to see how Mercedes reacted after they started slowly for a second consecutive year.

The Brackley team have fought back to lie second in the constructors’ championship having begun the season with the fourth or fifth-fastest car.

Hamilton insisted he always had faith, saying his bigger wobble was over the winter of 2021/22 after he had what would have been a record eighth world title snatched from him in Abu Dhabi.

“I definitely wanted to continue,” he said. “I mean, I think in life you have ups and downs. I think last year everyone [at Mercedes] was questioning whether they wanted to continue. It’s such a tough sport. But I think that thought quickly went away. I’m proud of the way we pushed through it and while we didn’t start this season the way we wanted we are currently second in the championship.”

The question now is how quickly Mercedes can get back to race-winning ways and challenge for titles.

Verstappen is hunting a record 10th consecutive race win this weekend in Monza as he closes in on what will be his third straight championship. Many believe it will take the introduction of a whole new set of regulations in 2026 for anyone to stand a chance of catching him.

Hamilton said he was not thinking like that. “I’m not working towards next year thinking it’s going to take another four years,” he said. “In my heart I truly believe if it’s not next year it’s the year after.”

He also denied that his decision to stay in the sport had anything to do with “revenge” or “redemption” after the controversy of 2021.

“I’m not really a revenge person,” he said. “That [Abu Dhabi] is in the past and there’s nothing you can do about the past. What we can do is work harder and be more precise and be better. I truly believe that with this team we can win more world championships and more races together.”

That could happen quicker if the powers-that-be choose to peg Red Bull back in some way, something Hamilton, unsurprisingly, did not sound particularly against.

“[When Mercedes were dominant] we experienced lots of changes which were put in place to slow us down, like banning our qualifying mode in 2021, or was it 2020,” he said. “On the one hand it was [frustrating] as our engineers had done a superb job. But from a fans’ perspective of course they want to see closer racing. We don’t want to see any team dominate for 10 years. None of us; teams, drivers, fans. We want close competition.”

Russell, whose deal is thought to be worth less than half Hamilton’s at around £20 million a year, said Hamilton’s extension was a “boost” for everyone at the team. “He wouldn’t have stayed if he didn’t think the team was capable of winning again,” the 25-year-old said. “That reinforces the confidence that I have in the team.”