Lewis Hamilton is adamant he has no plans to be anywhere other than Mercedes in the future and that the F1 team has nothing to prove to him to convince him to stay.
With a year remaining on his current contract, a question mark hangs over Hamilton’s future with Mercedes.
After a year without a victory for the first time in his 16-season F1 career last term, the pressure is seemingly on Mercedes to show it has learned the lessons from a difficult campaign and it can again challenge for wins and championships.
There were signs of encouragement toward the end of the year that it had managed to get a read on the new aerodynamic regulations that were introduced at the start of the season.
Now all eyes will be on the team’s latest challenger over the three days of pre-season testing in Bahrain this week to see if the car is a radical improvement on the much-maligned W13.
Mercedes harmony ‘the best I’ve seen’
If there are issues, then there are many who will immediately ponder whether Hamilton really will want to sign one final deal with Mercedes.
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That will be regardless of the diversity and inclusivity initiatives he and the team have developed over the years.
Dismissing the possibility he could leave for another team or even finally quit F1, Hamilton said: “I don’t feel like I need them to prove (anything) to me.
“I think we’ve proved time and time again over the years that we have strength in depth.
“We still have all these incredibly talented individuals within the team, and you don’t lose that ability.
“We’re continuing to try and improve our processes, to try and be smarter in how we approach things, and with our communication.
“This is the best harmony within the team that I’ve seen in all these years.
“We’ve got a real fresh young group of engineers and people that have just come into the team over the past year as well.
“So it’s an exciting time for the team, and I don’t plan on being anywhere else.”
Hamilton seeking front-to-back improvement with W14
When the W14 was recently unveiled, Mercedes stayed loyal to its zero-sidepod concept that raised eyebrows last season.
Team principal Toto Wolff has since made clear the sidepods were not the root cause of the problems of last year.
But assessing where he is seeking improvement from the new car, Hamilton was clear as he said: “It’s pretty much everything.
“It’s every element from the tip of the back to the tip of the front.
“It’s mostly characteristics of how the car behaves, and last year’s car didn’t behave like a racing classroom.
“That took away confidence for the drivers, and so we’ve gone through, over and over and over again throughout the year on the things that we wanted changing.
“We believe those have been addressed.
“Once we get in the car, we’ll know exactly just how much they’ve been addressed and whether there’s still more to do.”
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