Lewis Hamilton “100% clear” he will stay at Ferrari next season

Lewis Hamilton is not entertaining thoughts of retirement from Formula 1, refuting suggestions by those “trying to retire me” that he should call time on his illustrious career.

Hamilton stated that he planned to stay in F1 for “quite some time”, with the intent to remain at Ferrari for the next few years. Hamilton signed a multi-year deal on joining the Maranello squad, understood to be for three years; this would bring him to the end of 2027 on his current contract.

After a tough 2025 in which Hamilton struggled to adapt to Ferrari, the seven-time champion has enjoyed a brighter start to this season following changes to his side of the garage. Former race engineer Riccardo Adami stepped aside, and Hamilton is currently engineered by Carlo Santi on an interim basis.

Speaking about his future, Hamilton confirmed that he was still in contract with Ferrari for 2027, and stated that he was “still motivated” to compete in F1. Assuming a three-year deal, Hamilton will be 42 by the end of his contract. 

“Yep. I’m still in contract. So everything’s 100% clear to me. And yeah, I’m still focused. I’m still motivated,” Hamilton stated.

“I still love what I do with all my heart. And I’m going to be here for quite some time. So get used to it. There’s a lot of people that are trying to retire me. And that’s not even on my thoughts. 

“I’m already thinking of what will be next. And planning for the next five years. But yeah, I still plan to be here for some time.”

Various pundits had called for Hamilton to consider hanging up his helmet in recent weeks; ex-F1 driver Ralf Schumacher, now a pundit for Sky Sports Germany, suggested that both Hamilton and the 44-year-old Fernando Alonso should “give young people a chance” rather than continue in F1.

However, both drivers have proven that modern-day racers can enjoy greater longevity and remain competitive in their 40s, as had Kimi Raikkonen; the laconic Finn continued in F1 before retiring at 42. 

Hamilton’s seat has been linked to Haas’ Oliver Bearman, a product of Ferrari’s driver academy, but he looks set to wait at least another year before entering the frame for a Ferrari drive.

Hamilton: Ferrari simulator amazing, but prefers data analysis

Although simulators have formed an increasingly vital part of the driver’s preparation for a race weekend, Hamilton is known not to be a huge fan; indeed, he did not use the Ferrari simulator in its Maranello base ahead of the Montreal weekend.

Instead, he chose to focus on working with his engineers in assessing the data from the opening four rounds in an effort to work on optimising the balance of his Ferrari SF-26, particularly under braking.

He said that this decision had its roots in his more frequent use of Ferrari’s simulator last year, which he felt could often provide a distorted picture of the conditions he faced at each of the race weekends. 

“I didn’t use a sim,” he confirmed. “Firstly, the sim is amazing. It’s an amazing space to work in. It’s the best sim I’ve ever seen. The best group of people that I’ve, a large team of people that I get to work with there. And so a day at the sim is actually pretty incredible.

“It is a very, very powerful tool and something that as a team, we continue to evolve. I think since I’ve been there, I’ve had a lot of input in some of this evolution and they’ve been really respondent and made loads and loads of changes. And we’ve just been improving it.

“I just think, since the last year, I used it every week. And more often than not, I felt you do all the work on the sim and you get to the track, you find a setup that you’re comfortable with, you get to the track, and everything’s opposite. So then you’re undoing the things you’ve learned.

“Some of the ways you’ve approached the corners, you have to shift and adjust. Setup that you felt that was good on the simulator is not the same at the track sometimes. Sometimes it is.

“So it’s kind of hit and miss. I just decided, for this one, I’m just going to sit it out and focus more on the data. So there was just a lot of deep diving on, you know, through corner balance, mechanical balance, corner approaches, brake balance, optimising the brakes, which have been a problem for me for some time.

“And that’s led to really good integration with my engineers. It’s not a tool that I’m saying I’m never going to use again. I think it’s something that, for sure, we’ll continue to utilise, particularly on power deployment.

“What I’ve done for the last six months, you’d go in after the weekend and you’d work on correlation. And so that when we run it again, but then you go to the next track and it’s slightly off sometimes.

“We’ll see how the weekend goes. But, you know, China, for example, I didn’t do the same for China and it was my best weekend.”

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