Hamilton and Wolff enjoy 'amazing meeting'

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Lewis Hamilton says he and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff "had an amazing meeting" on Sunday afternoon amid change at the team.

Mercedes is currently searching for a replacement for Nico Rosberg, with the German having retired with immediate effect after beating Hamilton to the 2016 drivers' title. Wolff has previously stated any driver move will have to take into account the dynamic with Hamilton, who has two years left on his current contract.

With Mercedes linked with an approach for Valtteri Bottas on Sunday, and amid reports technical boss Paddy Lowe could be about to move in the other direction to Williams, Hamilton visited Wolff and was pleased with the outcome of their talks.

“We’re in Toto’s kitchen, we just had an amazing meeting," Hamilton posted in an Instagram video message. "We just wanted to send you all a message out and let you know we’re going to be the strongest partnership next year and we look forward to fighting for this championship again."

Wolff was sat alongside Hamilton in the clip, and added his own thoughts: “We spent a good couple of hours together, we had a really fantastic meeting and we will be coming back so strong in 2017.”

Hamilton is due to begin his off-season holidays this week, saying at the FIA Press Conference in Vienna that he is keen to get some downtime in Colorado after a record 21-race season.

"I'm basically just counting down the days until I can go away and have a holiday. It's not until the 12th or the 15th [of December], something like that. I'm just waiting for the days to go, it's the only time in the year when you're wishing days by. In life I generally don't like to wish days by but I'm looking forward to getting out and going skiing and snowboarding."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.