Wolff makes a telling admission over the Hamilton negotiations.

Lewis Hamilton’s latest Mercedes contract was negotiated by Toto Wolff, team principal of Mercedes, without any problems.

Mercedes revealed that Hamilton had extended his contract to the end of 2025 during the Italian Grand Prix weekend.

George Russell, a teammate who joined Mercedes last year, has also signed a new contract for the same time frame.

Since his previous contract was set to expire at the end of the current season, Hamilton’s future has been a hotly debated subject in recent months.

The seven-time World Champion was even briefly linked to Ferrari, but he dismissed those rumors and insisted that Mercedes was where he belonged.

“No more challenging than previous contracts,”.

Wolff has claimed that he and Hamilton had major terms worked out months prior to the deal’s announcement, even though it was made just a few months before he was scheduled to become a free agent.

The Austrian acknowledged that a dispute between lawyers over Hamilton’s contractual marketing obligations was what was delaying the deal’s final stages.

Wolff responded “No” to questions from the media, including RacingNews365, regarding whether the new agreement was more difficult to negotiate than earlier ones.
Not at all, no.

In June or July, I believe Lewis and I agreed on the key points.

“And then, obviously, things start to improve.
Just bubbling along, not drifting.

“After that, there was the summer vacation.
The final topic was marketing-related, not really one of the major, important issues.
It took some time to do that.

“They’ll actually play ping pong with lawyers occasionally.
Of course, I was fantastic, but the other side wasn’t.