"It's too early to talk about Lewis leaving" - Mercedes won't want Lewis Hamilton to stop, Martin Brundle says

In a recent SkySports Q&A, Martin Brundle rebuffed the idea of Lewis Hamilton looking for a new home in case Mercedes cannot get their act together this season.

When a fan asked Brundle, "My question is that if Mercedes don’t end up getting the car fast enough and Lewis wins no races this year, do you think he would be tempted to change teams - maybe Red Bull or Ferrari??" Brundle snubbed any such suggestions, citing that Hamilton's contract runs until the end of next year.

"Could Hamilton leave for another team? He has a contract for next season, although of course you don't know what exit clauses there are for team and driver, performance clauses."

"The absolute bottom line is - and I'm not talking about Lewis here - if a team and driver don't want to work together again or a driver wants to stop, that circum-navigates any contractual clauses. What a team won't want a driver to do is say 'I'm stopping', then the following week turn up for someone else."

"But I think it's too early to talk about Lewis leaving. It's only a few months ago that we were wondering whether the Brazilian GP weekend was Lewis' greatest-ever drive. And to get into the top-10 of his great victories is a strong achievement!"

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Where could Lewis Hamilton go?

The interesting question that does need to be answered is where will Lewis Hamilton end up if he decides to leave Mercedes for some other team. The problem here is that there are no other viable options that are available to Lewis at the moment.

Red Bull Racing has committed its future Max Verstappen and after the bad blood between the two parties in 2021, it's hard to see Lewis partnering with them in any capacity. Ferrari is on its way to building a new legacy alongside Charles Leclerc. It's hard to imagine the sevent-time world champion agreeing to being a number two driver, which automatically means that the top two teams on the grid do not have a seat for Lewis Hamilton.

There is however one wildcard pick that Lewis could go for: the team from Woking which has shown an impressive capability of improving season by season and could have leapfrogged Mercedes as the third fastest car on the grid in Imola. McLaren, Lewis Hamilton's first home in F1, could welcome him with open arms should that situation arise but, for now, speculating on something like this is a far-fetched thought more than anything else.