Toto Wolff drops big claim about Lewis Hamilton’s 2024 contract

Lewis Hamilton currently earns $20 million less than Max Verstappen per annum based on their current deals.

Lewis Hamilton is edging ever closer to signing a contract extension with Mercedes for the 2024 Formula 1 season, after revealing at the Spanish Grand Prix that he was going to meet team principal Toto Wolff on Monday.

Hamilton’s future has been one of the biggest talking points of the year so far, following rumours that he was going to be offered a £40 million deal by Ferrari to ditch the Silver Arrows after 11 years.

Both parties denied the rumour, with Hamilton instead having expressed his loyalty to Mercedes.

Following his P2 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Sunday, Hamilton revealed that he was set to meet Wolff to finalise his highly anticipated contract extension.

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“I’m meeting with Toto to wrap things up,” confirmed Hamilton.

Very little appears to have been left to negotiate, with Wolff having admitted that the talks would only take “half an hour”.

“We’ll sit down for half an hour over a coffee, and then it will be sorted.” said Wolff.

No news regarding what happened in the meeting has been revealed yet; however, if a new contract was signed then the likelihood is that it’ll be announced shortly.

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The length and value of the contract are likely going to be heavily discussed once it is announced, following reports that Hamilton desires a multi-year deal.

According to the latest reports though, Mercedes are only going to offer a deal for 2024.

Whether Hamilton will overtake Max Verstappen as the best-paid driver also remains to be seen, with RacingNews365.com reporting that the 38-year-old earns $20 million less than the Dutchman on their current deals.

Verstappen became the highest-paid driver on the grid after he signed his lucrative long-term deal last season, taking him to the end of 2028 with Red Bull.

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Red Bull advisor Dr Helmut Marko recently insisted that Hamilton is “far from happy” at being paid significantly less than the two-time World Champion, with the Austrian suggesting that Ferrari “could change that”.

“Lewis is far from happy about no longer being the highest-paid driver in Formula 1,” said Marko to F1 Insider last month.

“That title now belongs to Max Verstappen. At least with Ferrari’s help, he could change that.”