Peter Windsor, has cautioned Lewis Hamilton against the idea of joining Ferrari, as he perceives it could be detrimental to the seven-time world champion’s aspirations.
The contract extension of the seven-time world champion hangs in the air. While both Hamilton and his team principal, Toto Wolff, have expressed intentions for an extension, the delay in finalizing the deal has led to speculations of disagreements on specific matters.
During a live stream on his popular YouTube channel, F1 analyst Peter Windsor expressed his opinion on the matter.
He confidently stated that he does not find Ferrari to be an enticing prospect for Hamilton. “I can’t imagine Ferrari is attractive to him,” he remarked.
“Obviously he did work with Fred Vasseur at ASM in his Formula Three days and knows him and Fred would have put out the feelers to him.
“But then if he doesn’t go to Ferrari and all the chaos, where is he going to go? He’s not going to get a Red Bull seat so he might as well stay where he is.”
Speculations grew regarding Hamilton’s hesitation amid Mercedes’ 2022 challenges and his pursuit of an eighth-world title.
Yet, strong showings in Spain and Canada have eased some of these concerns. Windsor suggests Hamilton is persuading himself to commit to a new agreement.
“I think Lewis is sort of talking himself into staying at Mercedes, isn’t he?” Windsor said. “You could argue that tonight [after the British GP], he’ll get on the plane back and he’ll be thinking ‘well look at McLaren, they’ve turned it around. We can do the same.’
“I’m sure there’s a lot of that going on at Mercedes and I think Lewis with these conversations with Toto afterwards was saying ‘McLaren is unbelievably good on those fast corners, that’s what we’ve got to do.’
“But of course, it’s one thing to say ‘we want to be really quick on fast corners’, there’s another to be quick on fast corners and that’s a different story.”
With only two races remaining until F1’s summer break, Windsor suggests that Hamilton would be wise to delay any decision-making until after at least the Hungary Grand Prix.
“I think, in all fairness to everybody, not that they will think this way, but I think they really need to see what happens in Hungary,” he said.
“If they [McLaren] are quantifiably quicker than all their opposition except Red Bull again, then we’ve got a new chapter in this whole book of what’s going on in 2023. Because then, that is a new story.”
