Toto Wolff says no announcement on Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes contract will come before British GP this weekend; Wolff explains "other topics" rather than money or contract length are focus of negotiations; Mercedes boss sure Austrian GP team radio message will have no impact on talks
Monday 3 July 2023 12:36, UK
Toto Wolff remains "very confident" Lewis Hamilton will be extending his Mercedes contract and is sure Sunday's team radio rebuke will have no impact on remaining discussions.
Hamilton finished seventh - and was then demoted to eighth - in Sunday's Austrian GP as Mercedes struggled for pace at the Red Bull Ring, and was frequently on team radio complaining about his car's performance and other drivers exceeding track limits, an offence which Hamilton received a five-second time penalty of his own in-race and then 10 seconds post-race.
In the final quarter of the race, Wolff responded to a Hamilton radio message with "Lewis the car is bad, we know, please drive it."
Hamilton is in the final six months of his present contract with Mercedes and has yet to sign off on an extension despite a number of meetings with Wolff.
When asked the reasoning behind Wolff's radio message, Hamilton simply replied: "I don't know, you'll have to ask him."
Wolff said his message was "meant well" and sees it having no issue in contract talks.
"You should hear us talking on the phone and meeting each other, that was nothing," he said.
"No not at all (will it have an impact), we've had a bad spell of a weekend all of us in the team and that just makes us stronger."
Wolff had said on June 12, ahead of the Canadian GP, that finalising Hamilton's contract was "going to happen soon, and we are talking more days than weeks."
But the Mercedes boss said on Sunday there would not be an announcement coming ahead of this weekend's British GP and explained what was taking time.
"I'm still very confident," Wolff said.
"They want to do it super, to every detail and sometimes you can have a situation where everything is carved out.
"This is not a money discussion at all. It is about the future, what is it that we want to do right and optimise?
"We're not talking anything anymore about duration, money, all of that, it's other topics."
Asked how many years Hamilton will be driving with Mercedes, Wolff replied: "For a while. The Brits say a couple means two, and the Americans say a couple means a few, so it is somewhere there."
Next on the F1 calendar is the big one, Silverstone. Don't miss the British GP live on Sky Sports from July 7-9
