Mercedes, Hamilton decided to 'park' F1 contract talks

Toto Wolff remains relaxed about Lewis Hamilton's ongoing Formula 1 contract talks with Mercedes, but revealed talks were put on hold recently so the team could focus on improving its on-track performance.

Hamilton has eight months to run on his existing Mercedes F1 contract, but the four-time world champion has shown no signs of looking elsewhere for an F1 drive in 2019, saying regularly since the start of the season that the two parties are closing to finalising an agreement.

Hamilton gave a contract update on Sunday following his victory in the Spanish Grand Prix, which was attended by a number of Mercedes board members and other parts of the senior management.

"We’ve had all the bosses here today, and there is not a single person in the team or at least the hierarchy team that has any concerns, as far as I am aware," Hamilton said.

"We do talk about it, and we are not really far away from finishing things, so it will happen hopefully in the near future."

Wolff explained that while there were still no concerns on Mercedes' side about Hamilton leaving, a joint decision had been taken to put the talks on hold so the team could focus on recovering from three defeats to start the season.

"Obviously we don’t want to lose him and I don’t think he wants to go anywhere else. Everything’s going fine," Wolff said.

"There is no reason why we shouldn’t be racing with each other for a few more years. We had other priorities in the last few weeks. We weren’t happy with our car’s performance and we needed to sort things out.

"Finalizing a contract is something that you need to involve yourself in and spend time, and we both decided we’d park it for a minute where we were. But it’s almost all sorted and we will pick it up at the right time.

"This is what we will do, and we will let you know as soon as possible."