'Maybe Hamilton was going to walk away if he'd won on Sunday'

Toto Wolff expressed his doubts about the return of the seven-time world champion. Hamilton himself unfollowed the F1 account on Instagram and has been quiet on his social media for days.

Priestley does not expect the Briton to leave the sport. "I absolutely can’t see Lewis going anywhere. I’m sure he feels disillusioned with the sports and the people that are running it. But he’s a Formula 1 races, he’ll be intrigued by as anybody about the 2022 cars. He won’t want to make that his last appearance in F1."

Hamilton wants to fight back

From next year teams will be driving completely new cars following regulation changes, so the former McLaren mechanic expects Hamilton to want to experience this. However, things might have turned out differently if he did win.

"I’ve got half an inkling that if he’d won it on Sunday last week, maybe he was going to walk away. Maybe he had in his mind he might retire, I don’t know. But things have changed now because he’s got something to fight back against." According to Priestley, the anger, his new teammate against whom he wants to prove himself and the new era in F1 are enough reasons to return.