There’s a saying, isn’t there, about the quiet before the storm?

The 2025 F1 silly season was less a damp squib, and more a completely sodden, heavily discounted sparkler. That, combined with a title race which looked like it was also fizzling out, meant that this summer was a quieter one than expected.

Just as Max Verstappen’s run back into contention wouldn’t have been possible without it first looking as though the McLarens were cruising and home safe, the 2026 drivers’ market explosion wouldn’t have been possible without this summer falling into a holding pattern.

A significant number of drivers have contracts which either expire next year or are described as running until ‘at least the end of 2026’, with break clauses and team options abound. One of those whose future is expected to be up in the air when deals are done next summer? Sir Lewis Hamilton.

Could George Russell squeeze Hamilton out at Ferrari?

Hamilton’s contract almost certainly contains an option to be extended into the 2027 season without much negotiation being necessary, but the painful truth is that his performances this year simply don’t warrant that extra year.

ESPN reported recently that Ferrari aren’t currently of a mind to give him that extra 12 months, and Italian publication Corriere della Sera have now dropped George Russell’s name in the mix to replace his former Mercedes team-mate.

While it’d be foolish at this point to rule anything out – there’s rarely such thing in F1 as a contract so airtight that enough money won’t smooth things over – the idea of Russell being a Ferrari driver in 2027 seems farfetched.

The whole premise relies on Max Verstappen muscling his way in at the Silver Arrows next year – or Mercedes prising him away from Red Bull, a prospect which seems less likely than it did as recently as this summer, thanks to Christian Horner’s departure from the team and Verstappen’s launch back into the thick of the title battle.

The Dutchman would have to find himself pretty unhappy with his 2026 car, pretty early in the season to really make a move viable, at a time when he’s more likely than ever to give his team more leeway for the work they did to restore his confidence in the second half of this season.

Russell has also intimated that he has a clause in his newly-signed contract extension which guarantees him a spot in 2027 should he meet certain performance objectives next season. It’s possible he won’t meet those – but if he doesn’t, the likelihood is that Mercedes didn’t give him a car he could succeed in. That would bode poorly for their chances of convincing Verstappen to leap aboard.

While Hamilton’s Ferrari place, then, probably isn’t threatened by a suddenly freed Russell, that doesn’t mean he isn’t under pressure. If he’s as far off his team-mate’s pace next year as he has been this year, his biggest threat is still a former Mercedes driver. But that former Mercedes driver is himself.