Toto Wolff confident Lewis Hamilton will remain at Mercedes past 2020

The Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, has insisted that Lewis Hamilton staying with the team beyond the end of this season is “the obvious pairing”.

The six-times world champion has been linked with a possible move to Ferrari at the end of the year but Wolff believes he would be inclined to continue with his hugely successful partnership with Mercedes.

“I think it is the obvious pairing going forward,” said Wolff as Mercedes announced a new five-year sponsorship deal with petro-chemicals company Ineos . “We would like to have the fastest man in the car and Lewis wants to be in the fastest car,” he said. “I last talked to him at the Christmas party and we will continue the conversation when he gets back. I have great belief in the ability of the team to attract the best drivers and Lewis proved he is the best driver and I would hope we will continue to provide that technology to the best drivers.”

Wolff also dismissed reports that the team’s parent company, Daimler, was considering leaving Formula One as nonsense and said the deal with Ineos was a strong signal of intent that the team would stay in the sport

Mercedes have yet to confirm participation in F1 beyond this season but was bullish that he saw a long-term future for the team.

Wolff has been team principal at Mercedes since 2013 since when the team has won a record six consecutive drivers’ and constructors’ championship doubles. Their success has come at huge expense and Daimler announced in January that its earnings had halved in 2019 and that it would need to cut more than 10,000 jobs in the next two years.

Wolff was scathing about subsequent reports that the board was to discuss considering whether to pull out of F1. “I am always surprised that there is some lunatic out there on a website and a complete nonsense story that was put straight the following day by the CEO of Daimler,” he said. “We as Daimler see the advantages it gives to us. Participating in F1 is one of the exercises that costs little in comparison to the billions in marketing value that is being created.”

The current Concorde agreement between the teams, the FIA and the commercial rights holder, Liberty Media, expires at the end of 2020 and the new deal is under negotiation but no teams are currently committed to race beyond this season.

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Ineos are also sponsors of the cycling team known previously as Team Sky and Ineos Sailing UK, who are attempting to win the America’s Cup in 2021 with a boat designed and skippered by Ben Ainslie. Their partnership with Mercedes reflected the team’s commitment, Wolff insisted.

“We are in this for the long term,” he said. “We are in negotiation with the rights holder and things need to be sorted out but this partnership indicates our wish to continue our successful journey in F1.”

With the sport set to adopt a budget cap in 2021 Wolff was also confident that ultimately Mercedes F1 team would return a profit to Daimler.

source: theguardian.com