Lewis Hamilton has responded to the question of his F1 retirement and revealed that he is unlikely to return to the paddock once he is done. At 40, the seven-time F1 champion is in first year of his multi-year deal with Ferrari.
Since losing the 2021 drivers' championship to Max Verstappen, Hamilton looks like a shadow of his championship-winning self, with his former team, Mercedes, partially to blame for being unsuccessful to nail its ground-effect challenger. Sadly, Ferrari is in the same boat in the last year of the current regulations, not making life easy for the British racer.
In a recent interview with French publication, L'Equipe, Lewis Hamilton revealed why he chose to give importance to F1 over starting a family. The only possible missed opportunity he saw on that front was being able to show his child, if he had one, what it would feel like to be in the Ferrari garage and the grandeur it brings.
This induced a follow-up leading statement from the publication that Hamilton could always bring his children to the paddock even after retirement. To that, the Ferrari racer responded:
"No, I don't think so. I don't know if I really want to come back. I can't imagine coming to a circuit and staying in the garage. I watch a little bit the others do that, maybe in a month it will change and I can just come and enjoy it, maybe I'll be disconnected and I'll be fine."
When further asked about his intentions to continue in F1, the British racer touched upon the career longevity of Fernando Alonso, the only racer older than him on the grid saying:
"I don't plan to stop anytime soon, and I really appreciate that Fernando (Alonso, 44) continues, because it means he's older than me (Smiles). Yes, I'm just going to keep going until he's 50."
Lewis Hamilton on the chance to work with Top Gun Maverick director for the F1 Movie
The F1 movie was directed by the Top Gun Maverick director Joseph Kosinski. Lewis Hamilton was given the opportunity to play the role of Top Gun Maverick, but he was busy racing in the championship. Although, the Ferrari racer got the chance to work with Kosinski, and speaking about the experience during the F1 Movie premiere, he said,
“It's been an incredible-incredible experience from the moment that I spoke to Joe (Joseph Kosinski) about being a Maverick and then having to turn down that experience [of] being in that movie to then getting to work on this script with him and get to work on this movie.”
The Ferrari racer also explained how much Brad Pitt's character (Sonny Hayes) and Damson Idris's character (Joshua Pearce) were based on him.