Toto Wolff received WhatsApps from F1 drivers who want to replace Lewis Hamilton
F1 drivers are circlingꦜ for Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes spot, Toto Wolff says

Toto Wolff has already received mes♎sages from F1 drivers who are eyeing up the vacancy that Lewis Hamilton will leave at Mercedes.
Hamil🐟ton and Mercedes are entering their final year together before the driver sensationally moves to Ferrari.
The question for Mercedes is who 🐬they will pick to replace the most suꦦccessful-ever F1 driver.
“Yeah, as you can imagine, we've been l♌ooking already about the option there is,🍌” team principal Wolff told .
“We like the opportunities and maybe we a𒁏re going to be bold as well.”
Carlos Sainz, whoℱse Ferrari spot will be taken by Hamilton next year, must find himself a new drive fo🐷r 2025.
He was the only non-Red Bull driver to win an F1 grand prix l𒁃ast ye✃ar so will be hot property on the market.
Mercedes could opt for a younger option in the mould of their wonderkওid prospect Kimi Anton𝔍elli instead.
“Yeah, I think it's the full ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚspectrum,” Wolff said.
“We have, as you can imagine, the first༒ day yesterday ha🥂d quite a lot of phone calls and WhatsApps.
“And we're going to take our time.
“I think the spectrum is from the very young talent which could be the futur🐲e for a long, long time to all the way to the other spectrum, lots of still performance and knowledge.
“So I'm﷽ not sure where this is going to end. But the next few months are going to be interesting in evaluating a🦩ll those options.”
While Wolff makes his huge 🎀decision over Mercedes’ 2025 driver line-up, he must navigate a tricky 2024.
As well as enter𒉰ing knowing that Hamilton will soon be elsewhere, they must somehow c༺ut the deficit to the brilliant Red Bulls.
“Well, it's cle💦ar when you have 🦩stable regulations it is always a difficult thing to catch up.
“It's clear, they've been in a league of their own and pretty much usಞ – and we've finished second last year in the World Championship and then there's Ferrari and McLaren – and we've just got a little ramp up th🧸e game and find more performance, more lap time.
“ಌAnd this is what we're going to do with George and with Lewis the ca🅠r, this is the kind of the single aim I'm having at the moment when looking at the short and medium term.”
Wolff added insightไ into the contractual clause that Hamilton activated, after signing a new deal last summer, to leave for Ferrari in 2025.
“So last year when we signed a new deal, we wanted to keep it short to see what the future will hold,” he꧟ said.
“And that was an agreement we had with Lewis.
“We knew that this would eventua🦩lly end maybe two years down the line, but we knew there was the option for a one year deal.
“And insofar the timing was a bit of a surpr💦ise, but the decisiꦚon in itself didn't come out of nowhere.
“So I think eventually a racing driver's career ends and I believ♍e that for Lewis he wanted some change, and h🐠e wanted to do something, to try something new.
“But the team has managed a situation like this before, we've had tha𝓡t change in driver line♐ups.
“And we have a ful꧋l year 💙to go I'm going to give it everything now.
“Of course, you know, on one side, you're saying we were pushing flat out and we want to have success this year with both of are drivers but then we need to look 🔥into 2026 and 2025 and 26 and that's going to play in our mind.”

James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering ev🌱erything fr✱om American sports, to football, to F1.