| It’s fair to say that Lewis Hamilton is going to take some time to get over what happened in Abu Dhabi and how a record-breaking eighth F1 title had been taken away through no fault of his own. It’s natural for him to be taking stock and not making any public statements, while his boss Toto Wolff is batting off questions about the potential for his star driver to quit the sport. But if that did happen, what would Mercedes do next? All the other seats are locked down, so imagine that a potentially title-winning one suddenly becomes available… Mercedes could turn to its Formula E drivers, Stoffel Vandoorne or Nyck de Vries, but how about a less-risky fix like getting Valtteri Bottas back from Alfa Romeo? Alfa could surely get Antonio Giovinazzi out of his FE contract, just like Red Bull did with Alex Albon, or pick up F2 runner-up Robert Shwartzman. Kimi Raikkonen or Nico Hulkenberg would be random options – how about those as Drive to Survive storylines? – but perhaps the most far-fetched (but truly intriguing) options are at Alpine, where former Merc reserve driver Esteban Ocon and two-time champion Fernando Alonso (on a shorter contract than his teammate) would crave a shot. Personally, I hope Lewis doesn’t quit. Our sport would be a far poorer place without him and another season of ‘Hamilton v Verstappen: this time it’s personal’ would surely be an epic sequel. By: Charles Bradley, Global Editor in Chief
Motorsport.com | 
