Formula 1: Mercedes re-sign Valtteri Bottas before Lewis Hamilton

Mercedes have re-signed Valtteri Bottas for the 2021 Formula 1 season, but six-time world champion Lewis Hamilton remains without a new deal.

Mercedes teammates Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas have long been tipped to return to the Silver Arrows for what would be a fifth consecutive year as teammates in the 2021 Formula 1 season, the longest active streak in the sport.

That scenario is still likely. But four races into the 2020 season, the team have extended Bottas’s deal through 2021, while Hamilton remains a pending free agent.

“I’m very happy to stay with Mercedes in 2021 and build on the success we’ve enjoyed together already,” said Bottas. “Thank you to everyone in the team and the wider Mercedes family for their continued support and their trust in me. I’m very proud to represent this great team and the three-pointed star on our journey together again next year.”

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Team principal and CEO Toto Wolff discussed re-signing the 30-year-old Finn.

“I’m confident that we have the strongest driver pairing in F1 today and signing Valtteri is an important first step in retaining this strength for the future,” he said.

“Valtteri is a hard-working, straightforward guy who has a good relationship with the entire team – including his team-mate, which is not a given when both drivers are fighting for the championship. I’m looking forward to seeing him continue to raise the bar together with us this year and in 2021.”

As for Hamilton, there were rumors during the offseason that he and Mercedes were struggling to come to terms on a new deal, but the 35-year-old Briton shot those rumors down.

But now the team have re-signed the much less expensive Bottas, who has eight victories since replacing 2016 world champion Nico Rosberg ahead of the 2017 season, prior to the six-time world champion, who has won 34 races since Bottas joined the team and is now just four wins shy of Michael Schumacher’s all-time record of 91.

What is going on here?

Hamilton, who already owns a 30-point lead over his teammate in the driver standings as he pursues what would be a record-tying seventh world championship, simply says it isn’t the right time to sign a new deal.

“Ultimately, honestly, it just doesn’t feel like the right time,” he said. “When you think about so many people in the world that have lost their jobs, people that are unemployed, then to sit and negotiate a big contract – it just doesn’t seem like the most important thing that I need to apply time to right this second. The fact is I do want to continue with the team and it’s not a big effort for us to sit down and get it done. It’s just right now I don’t feel comfortable with it, and so we’ll wait a little bit longer.”

Hamilton had been rumored for a move to Ferrari following the 2020 season, but both of their seats are taken until at least 2023, so this obviously won’t happen.

Charles Leclerc signed a massive extension that runs through the 2024 season back in December, and the team have confirmed that Carlos Sainz Jr. is set to replace four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel on a two-year deal after 2020.

“I’m not talking to anybody else and I’m looking forward to continue on, particularly as we’ve just started a new chapter as a team, in terms of how we educate ourselves, how we understand what we’re going to do to help be more diverse moving forwards and more inclusive,” he added. “So I’m super-excited for what it’s possible to do with Mercedes-Benz and this time moving forward. At some stage it will get done but I’m not stressed.”

In other words, Mercedes is really the only feasible option for Hamilton next season, so there is no point in rushing a confirmation. The fact that Bottas signed a new deal first simply seems immaterial in the grand scheme of things.

Bottas had been seen as the man on the hot seat, especially amid rumors that Vettel could join the Brackley-based team, but now those rumors are out the window as well.