Lewis Hamilton has every intention of ending his Formula One career at Mercedes amid speculation over the seven-time world champion’s future.
The 38-year-old finds himself in the midst of a second successive year off the pace with his current contract set to expire at the end of this F1 season.
But Hamilton said he had no plans to walk away despite the W14 currently being in the region of a second a lap behind the front-running Red Bull.
Asked about his Mercedes future in the lead-up to Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix, Hamilton said: “I feel amazing about it. I continue to feel very much at home. It is my family, and I see myself being with Mercedes until my last days.
“If you look at the legends like Sir Stirling Moss, who was with Mercedes until the end of days, that has been the dream for me, to one day have that.
“I have got some amazing allies at the team, some great relationships here and, as long as I can continue to help the team, drive the team forward and really contribute then that is why I want to stay.
“If there is ever a point where I feel like I am not able to do that, it is time for a youngster to come in and take my seat. But I still feel pretty young and in pretty decent shape.”
Hamilton recovered from a difficult weekend at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix where he struggled with the handling of the Mercedes to finish in fifth, a place behind teammate George Russell.
They were both some way off the pace of race winner Sergio Perez and his teammate Max Verstappen, a situation Hamilton warned was not about to change any time soon.
He said: “It’s going to take us the rest of the year to potentially close that gap. If you look at the Red Bull, it is just going to continue to evolve most likely.
“Some cars do plateau in terms of performance. It can’t just keep going - but maybe it can, they have a great team around them and I am sure they will continue to add downforce.
“We have shown in the past that we can develop quickly and hope that is the case that, as the potential of the car opens up, we will full steam ahead in that direction.”
Mercedes began last season also on the back foot with the car porpoising badly and both Hamilton and Russell struggling before turning their car into a grand-prix winner by the season’s end. And Hamilton is confident the team can make an even more seismic step than in 2022.
“If we put our heads down and chip away at this, we can really make a difference,” he said. “We already did that last year and we can do it bigger and better than last year.
“There’s lots of work going on. I’m just trying to make sure I stay consistent and I’m training quite a lot between races, and I’m the fittest I can be so that at some stage I do get the car that we’ve all been hoping for. If that happens, whether that’s two or 10 or 20 races away, I want to make sure I’m ready for that day.”
In his quest to close the gap on the Red Bulls as quickly as this weekend, Hamilton said he was praying for rain. Wet weather is forecast in Melbourne although not currently for Sunday’s race.
Looking ahead to race three of the season, he said: “This weekend I’m just hoping for rain if I’m honest because that’ll make it a little more exciting from our point of view. But I’m just hoping the gap isn’t a second and we can hit the ground running with the set-up. But I arrive here feeling rejuvenated and the atmosphere in the team is positive.”
