Lewis Hamilton plans to remain with Mercedes for the rest of his F1 career despite the team’s difficulties, according to one of the British driver’s former teammates.
Heikki Kovalainen, Lewis Hamilton’s former teammate, has expressed support for the British driver’s decision to stay with Mercedes as the team works to regain the lead.
The British driver has been open about his goal to surpass Michael Schumacher in the all-time rankings by finally winning that eighth world championship. Recently, he has even said that he won’t quit his F1 career until he has gotten one more championship win.
However, he was far from the title race the last year as Mercedes bungled the development of their car and had to spend the entire season catching up. Hamilton will have hoped that his squad would let him to fight at the front once more, but it appears that the Silver Arrows won’t have much of an impact on the title chase.
The seven-time champion has generated a lot of rumors that he would consider joining another team if they provide him a better chance of defeating Red Bull. Aston Martin has also been mentioned as a possible fit for him since they emerged as a front-runner in the first race of this season. He has also been linked with Ferrari.
Heikki Kovalainen, though, does not see any of that taking place. The Finn, who was Hamilton’s teammate at McLaren for two seasons and has been his buddy ever since, detailed why he believes the driver is yet to retire in an exclusive chat with Mirror Sport.
“Personally, I don’t see that coming… to me, he’s committed to Mercedes,” Kovalainen responded when questioned about his thoughts on the notion that Hamilton would quit.
He continued to defend that by stating that he thought Hamilton could still feel like he had more to show in Formula 1.
“I met him in Hungary last year and we had a good chat there,” he added. “Without going into detail of what was said in a private conversation, the body language and the feel I got from him, I just felt that this is something that he wants to turn around.”
“He wants to turn things around for Mercedes and that’s going to tick another box on his resume to show that it’s not that he’s only been driving good cars and making the most of the good cars, but that he can actually turn a struggling team around and lead that team.”
“That’s the reason why I’m thinking he’s not going to change… I feel he wants to turn this thing around with Mercedes and then he can show the world that he can turn a struggling team into a winning team again.”
“It’s going to be exciting to watch and I one hundred per cent believe he has the skill and the will… If anyone, he can probably do it.”
