Hamilton: Alonso and I could race into our 50s

Lewis Hamilton has not ruled out the possibility that he and Fernando Alonso could race into their 50s in Formula 1.

38-year-old Hamilton has started 315 Grands Prix, as of the 2023 Miami race, only missing a single event since his debut in 2007 - although this was due to him contracting COVID-19 in 2020 and not through injury.

He is the second-oldest driver on the grid, behind 41-year-old Fernando Alonso, with the two World Champions still performing at a high level and fighting for podiums as they look to close in on Red Bull.

The seven-time champion had previously said he would not be racing into his 40s - which he will hit in January 2025, but did not explicitly rule out racing into his 50s.

Hamilton racing into 50s?

"You can never say never," Hamilton said when asked by media, including RacingNews365, if he and old rival Alonso could potentially still be racing in 2035.

"Brad [Pitt] is going to be racing in the movie in his 50s, so I'll be the third oldest driver!

"There's a lot of people out there like [NFL great Tom Brady], there is different ways you can train, how you eat, how you focus.

"Technology and our bodies are shifting and it is just about the mentality and whether or not you still have the drive to sacrifice the same amount as you did when you first started.

"I pretty much do, so I can't speak for Fernando, but he's done a great job and I'm looking forward to hopefully more great fights moving forwards."

Hamilton's recovery

Hamilton also touched upon the recovery process after Grands Prix, when asked by RacingNews365.

"Now my recovery is better because I'm more focused on recovery than I ever was, [even] when I was 22," he said.

"I wasn't focused on recovery, I didn't even know anything about recovery. I was just leaving [the track] going home and probably having a pizza, not knowing what I needed to do the next day for recovery.

"I didn't have any specialists around me to help navigate that, I had a physio but we didn't do a huge amount.

"We did some training together. We did some swimming together. But otherwise, I didn't have all the details of what to eat, how to replenish the liquids you lose, stretching and all those different things. I wasn't doing that back then.

"But also, I don't know if those drivers back in the day were that fit, so they probably fell off more than us because we train a lot more than they did."