Lewis Hamilton is not ready to let age set a finish line on his Formula 1 career, feeling he is “built differently" and insisting there has been no drop-off so far in his reaction time.
At 41, the seven-time world champion is already looking towards the sport’s return to Africa – and the chance to race in Rwanda when the country joins the calendar in the early 2030s.
F1 has signed a 10-year deal for a Grand Prix at a new circuit near Kigali. Hamilton has long pushed for the sport to return to the continent and joked that he would need to extend his career to take part.
Asked how seriously he was considering that prospect, he made his position clear.
“Firstly, you've never had anyone like me here in the last 10 years. So I feel that I'm built differently,” he said on Thursday in Mexico City.
“Of course, there are challenges up ahead that I can't foresee that come with age. But along this way, along this journey, there have been so many preconceived ideas about the fact that your reaction time drops off.
“Did you see my reaction in the last race? My reaction's faster than some of the youngest people here. So there are lots of tools that you can utilise to continue to keep yourself and mind sharp.
“I guess as long as you're willing to sacrifice everything, which I continue to if I am right now. I can't say in four years whether I want to continue to do what I'm doing, but I love what I'm doing still now.
©Ferrari
“I'm still all in and I will be for the foreseeable future. Whether or not I can compete at 44 with a 20-year-old, who knows? But at 41 I can compete with a 20-year-old. So time will tell whether I'm here in the 30s. We'll see.
“But I never want to overstay my welcome in the sense of still not having the performance. I don't want to be walking - driving around with that really dropped off.
“My reactions dropped off, my drive's dropped off, and my pace has dropped off, which everyone assumed last year. But I've proved everyone wrong with that and I will continue to try to do so.”
Rwanda remains a target, not a promise
Hamilton is not offering a guarantee that he will still be racing when the African Grand Prix arrives.
His message is that he will continue while the speed, commitment and appetite are there – and leave when they are not. For now, he is still relishing the challenge.
His immediate focus is the final five races of the season. Third in the drivers' standings and just one point behind George Russell, Hamilton is not preoccupied by the battle for second.
“I’m not going to say it doesn’t mean anything, but it’s not something I focus on. I think winning the championship is the only thing anybody must really care about,” he said.
Read also: Leclerc rejects Alonso’s criticism of F1’s backmarkersInstead, he wants to help Ferrari claim second in the constructors' championship, having finished fourth last year. He is also using the closing rounds to feed into the team's preparations for 2027.
“I’m really using these five races as a test bench for next year’s car,” he explained.
“Spending time speaking with our head of aerodynamics, talking about vehicle dynamics, where we can improve this car, how we can keep the goodness of the chassis, for example, which has been great this year.”
Rwanda may yet provide Hamilton with one more career milestone. At least for now, he is refusing to rule it out.
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