Lewis Hamilton is now 37 years of age, which years ago before the days of conditioning and nutrition may have been around the age an athlete may have been forced into retirement, but Toto Wolff believes this is no longer the case.
The British driver currently has one year left on his deal at Mercedes and although it is pretty much confirmed that a new contract will be signed by Hamilton, nothing is official yet.
Wolff claims that Hamilton only has to look at the sporting world around him for examples of athletes performing at high levels at an older age, seeing no reason why the seven-time world champion will can’t fight for titles for years to come.
“You can see today’s athletes are pushing the boundaries in terms of age,” he said.
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“For me, Fernando [Alonso] is performing at a very high level. And you look at, for me, the best athlete in the world, Tom Brady, he’s on the feet actually, he’s being tackled and throwing a ball and he’s 43 years old.”
After coming so close to winning his record breaking eighth drivers’ championship last year, Hamilton will be hungry to stay competing at the top of the leaderboards, with the Brit recently saying that he is not a fan of the whole retirement idea.
The 37-year-old recently confirmed that he sees himself at Mercedes for the rest of his life in some capacity, with Wolff backing up the suggestion that the Brit will continue to drive for the team before transitioning into a different role with the team.
“We haven’t started any talks,” he told reporters when asked if there is any official news on Hamilton’s future.
“We want to definitely finish the season and then try to find some quiet time over the winter like we have done last time around. That literally started in the winter holidays and then lasted over two months, but we haven’t done that.
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“But as I say, he’s much more than a driver to us now.
“Although we are not talking about a career end, it’s also important to speak about his role as an ambassador for Mercedes and the many sponsors we have and the implication he can have in our wider universe.”
Hamilton has been discussing his keen eye for engineering innovation recently, revealing that he revolutionised the steering wheel in F1 during his early days in the sport, alongside constantly tampering with his car and its set up to get the best possible results on race day.