Lion Lewis wants to fend off F1's young cubs for years to come — MPH

Since Max Verstappen’s F1 career came into full flower last year and Lewis Hamilton’s run of titles came to an end, the perception has inevitably been that we are seeing the last couple of seasons of Lewis behind the wheel. Not so, according to him.

Following Toto Wolff’s recent revelation that Hamilton, 37, has told him ‘he has at least another five years in him’ Hamilton himself confirmed yesterday that any thoughts of retirement have been put on the backburner. “I’m feeling good, I love what I’m doing, I have a lot to achieve still, so not planning on going anywhere anytime soon.”

From the outside it has always felt that any less than fully competitive season where he is not able to engage Verstappen on equal terms would be an unsatisfactory way to sign off. Even though he has silenced those insisting that team mate George Russell was out-performing him (he isn’t – Hamilton has outqualified him seven times in the last eight races and in the one he didn’t, he had a DRS failure), with Max’s career in the full ascendant, it might look like that had finished Hamilton off. Like it was the inevitable conclusion of the old pride of the pack being challenged by the young lion.

“Why would I stop? I can still do all the other things I want to do at the same time.”

That’s invariably how these things always end. The younger guy always ultimately prevails. But there is nothing which says how long the contest lasts. On the way to that inevitable conclusion, the proud old warrior can still have plenty of victories over his challenger, for years to come. It will only mean anything if they are in comparably competitive cars of course – and Hamilton’s striving to be part of Mercedes’ recovery from its fall is clearly at least part of his motivation for pushing on: that there are glories still to come. “For now the immediate focus is on winning more races and championships,” he says.

“I plan to be with Mercedes for the rest of my life. That’s easy, definite. It’s more figuring out what we’re going to do, what are the timelines, even beyond racing. I want to be building with Mercedes, there’s a lot Mercedes can do. It’s not just an F1 manufacturer, it provides so many jobs for so many people. It has such a powerful platform to really shift narratives and be a part of that shift and process with Mercedes far beyond winning races and championships.”