Wolff on Hamilton's wishes: 'He has never said that'

Valtteri Bottas is still Hamilton's teammate, but the Finnish driver gets a lot of criticism for his performance. Whereas Hamilton has shown for years that the Mercedes car is good enough to fight for the world title, Bottas lags behind with his performance. In the world championship rankings, he is not even in the top three.

Mercedes opts for Bottas or Russell

The name of George Russell is therefore increasingly heard when it comes to his successor. The driver is doing a great job at Williams and seems to be ready for a step up. Toto Wolff states that during the contract negotiations with Hamilton he has of course spoken to the Englishman about who should be his teammate next season. "We have always been very transparent with our drivers. Because of my personal relationship with Lewis, we have of course discussed many scenarios," he states in conversation with Motorsport-total.com.

"Part of it was also who would be the second driver, but Lewis has never tried to influence the decision and he has no preference about who should be in the car", the Mercedes team boss stressed. "He thinks the relationship with Valtteri is good, and we know that. But he has never said he would prefer this or that."