Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton has admitted that he may be nearing the end of his time in Formula 1, but he is still willing to “sacrifice everything” to try to prolong his career.

Hamilton has been a stalwart of the F1 field since McLaren gave him his debut back in 2007. The 41-year-old has also never missed a season since he first got onto the F1 grid, and has now surpassed Rubens Barrichello to get the record for the most consecutive seasons at 20.

Seven-time F1 champion Hamilton is set to further extend his record, too, as the Briton has regularly stressed that he has a contract with Ferrari through at least 2027. It has even been said that Hamilton has an option in his contract for 2028, should he want to continue racing.

Now that F1 will return to Africa with a Grand Prix in Rwanda in the early 2030s, there have also been suggestions that Hamilton could try to further extend his career to ensure that he fulfils his dream of racing in Africa. But Hamilton does not want to “overstay my welcome”.

Having already endured what Hamilton called his “worst season ever” and a “nightmare” in 2025 during his first season with Ferrari in the final year of the ground-effect era, the Briton will not simply continue racing in F1 for the sake of it if he feels his reaction times are going.

Hamilton said, via quotes by RacingNews365: “Firstly, you’ve never had anyone like me here in the 70 years [that the F1 championship has existed]. So, I feel that I’m built differently.

“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 reactions are faster than some of the youngest people here. So, there are lots of tools that you can utilise to continue to keep yourself and your mind sharp.

“I guess as long as you’re willing to sacrifice everything, which I am right now. I can’t say in four years whether I [will] want to continue to do what I’m doing, but I love what I’m doing still now.

“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 2030s. We’ll see. 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 dropping off, that my reactions have dropped off, that my driving has dropped off, and my pace has dropped off – which everyone has seen last year, but I proved everyone wrong with that, and I’ll continue to try to do so.”

Only Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso is older than Hamilton on the 2026 grid, and the 45-year-old Spaniard is also now committed to staying through at least 2027 after recently signing a new contract. It means Alonso is both the 10th youngest driver to ever race in F1 and the 45th oldest driver to ever race in F1 (and he could finish 2027 as the 31st oldest).

Hamilton, meanwhile, currently ranks as the 67th youngest driver to start an F1 Grand Prix and the 87th oldest driver to start a Formula 1 race. By the end of 2027, Hamilton is due to climb to 74th in the list of the oldest drivers to start a race, and should rise to around 35th in the current table were the Briton to remain on the grid through at least the 2030 season.

Alonso is certainly showing Hamilton that it is still possible to perform at a high standard in F1 in your mid-40s, too. However, every driver reacts differently to the effects of ageing, and Hamilton could also face the question of whether he has the same desire to continue racing in his mid-40s like Alonso – who seems unwilling to give up on his dreams of winning again.