Lewis Hamilton has admitted there is a desire to race for Ferrari in Formula 1 and the fact it will never happen is “crazy”.
The seven-time F1 World Champion, who is the most successful driver of all-time going by the record books having reached 100 grands prix wins last weekend, has only ever raced for two teams – McLaren and Mercedes – and has only ever driven cars powered by Mercedes.
He has committed the rest of his F1 career to the German manufacturer, having recently signed a two-year extension which will see him remain at Mercedes until 2023 and Hamilton has hinted that he is unlikely to continue past then, having already considered retirement on a number of occasions.
“There’s definitely plenty of times I’ve had over the last four or five years where I’ve been like, I don’t know if I want to keep giving or sacrificing the training and my personal life,” he told Sky F1.
“There’s other things that I’d like to do, normal stuff I want to do… but on the other side I’m like, wow, I’m so fortunate that I get to do this job.
“In the bigger scheme of things, it’s a little of your life. There’s a long, long time retired. So I’m trying to find the right balance. If I’m still hungry, if I can still train myself as I did as a kid, which I do now, and still achieve great results… then great.”
The lure of driving for Ferrari is something every driver thinks about, given their history in the sport, but the greatest of all time will not have worn red during his F1 career and that’s something Hamilton finds “crazy” that he will never experience.
“It’s definitely going to be crazy to think that I never drove for Ferrari,” he added. “Of course I look at the colour and the red, it’s just… it’s still the red.
I have a couple of Ferraris at home, so I do get to drive a Ferrari, just not the one!
“For everyone that’s a dream position to be in. It was just never really fully on the cards for me. I’ll never fully know why, but I wish them all the best and I’m going to spend the next bit of my time stopping them from winning the championship!”
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