Seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton has opened up on the prospect of retiring from Formula 1, with his time at the pinnacle of motorsport moving towards its close.
It seems like yesterday that Hamilton made his Formula 1 debut at the 2007 Australian Grand Prix for McLaren, a weekend where he showed that he was a driver who’d achieve incredible things.
16 years later, and it’s safe to say he’s done just that, with the 38-year-old boasting 103 pole positions and victories, and seven titles.
Whilst he is expected to remain in the sport until the end of 2025, by at which point he’ll be 40 years old, he is already looking ahead to life post-F1, with the driver having spoken to several retired athletes.
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Hamilton does already have some things to switch his focus to once he does decide to call it a day, with the Mercedes driver having Mission 44 and the Hamilton Commission.
The Brit wants it to get to a point where he retires from F1 but has “something better” to move onto, with the driver admitting that he already has “lots of things in the pipeline”.
“When I’ve spoken to other athletes, we focus so much on being the best you can be in that one thing that the other things that you also love, like if it’s playing an instrument, or if it’s writing scripts, it all falls, everything falls away,” Hamilton explained on the On Purpose podcast.
“How can you compartmentalise staying in the zone and the focus lane, but also build up some of those other skills and discover other passions?
“You know, you’ve heard people tell LeBron [James] ‘shut up and dribble’ like, there’s a lot of people put you in a box and say this, you can only do one thing.
“But as I’ve seen and spoken to some people that are active and retired, a lot of them say particularly when they retire, that they everything kind of fell apart.
“Like everything fell to the ground, they had nothing to back it up with and they hadn’t discovered what they’re doing next.
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“So then they go through this emotional journey of discovery, but it takes time. So I’m like, trying to learn from those things, and applying them and find the other things that I’m passionate about.
“So I genuinely feel today that I have lots of things in the pipeline, that when I do stop, it’s going be like, ‘so grateful [for F1], but I have something better that I’m moving onto.’
“But I have no doubts that me and my dad will always have to go to the go kart track or something. I’m always going to be competitive, that’s literally a strain in my DNA that’s just never going to shift, we’re competitive at everything.”