Hamilton says he never has a team-mate preference, but Rosberg's new two-year deal is "good for stability" at champions Mercedes
Monday 25 July 2016 11:58, UK
Lewis Hamilton has given an indifferent response to Nico Rosberg's Mercedes contract extension, saying "I don't mind who's my team-mate".
Mercedes announced in Budapest on Friday that Rosberg will be staying at the Brackley team until at least the end of 2018, meaning both their drivers' contracts are now due to expire at the same time.
Having first raced alongside each other, and built up a friendship, during their teenage years in karting, Hamilton and Rosberg have been in tandem at Mercedes since 2013 with those previous warm relations suffering under the weight of their successive world title battles.
Asked by Sky Sports F1 for his response to Rosberg's new deal, Hamilton simply said "it's alright" before adding: "I don't mind who's my team-mate.
"It's good for stability in the team."
That stability means that by the end of 2018, Hamilton and Rosberg will have completed the most races as team-mates in F1 history.
What does Rosberg's deal mean?
Despite their on-track clashes in Spain and Austria costing the team nearly 50 constructors' points and prompting Toto Wolff to issue a "final warning" over such incidents, Mercedes had always stressed they expected the Rosberg-Hamilton partnership to continue into 2017.
Speaking to Sky Sports in May in the weeks after their Barcelona crash, Hamilton said: "It's a solid team. Apart from the last race, it's generally a very solid team. I think up until then we had done a pretty awesome job with the team considering the circumstances of being so tense. So there's no reason to have to change."
Other leading drivers, from Max Verstappen to Fernando Alonso, have been linked with a Mercedes seat from time to time and, speaking in Hungary the day before his team-mate's extended deal was announced, Hamilton suggested the in-house rivalry would not be any different whoever was in the other car.
"It's the same thing right now as it would be if Fernando was in the car with me, a lot of the other great drivers, we'd be having the same thing," he said on Thursday.
"Not much different. It might be more aggressive, it might be easier, it might be smoother, or less smooth. Who knows?"
Heading into this weekend's Hungarian GP, Rosberg leads Hamilton, the reigning world champion, by a single point in the Drivers' Championship.
