Lewis Hamilton’s World Championship defence is well and truly on track. Pun intended.

After the Ferrari’s got off to what would have been an alarming start from a Mercedes point of view, Hamilton has managed to reign them back in, and now lies 17 points clear of bitter German rival, Sebastian Vettel.

Vettel has been left frustrated after the Italian giants failed to capitalise on several strong positions basically handing the championship lead to Hamilton on a silver platter.

However, there is still plenty of racing to be done in 2018 and Hamilton will have to remain focused if he is to hold off the determined Vettel.

That task won’t be made any easier though by the constant distraction being caused by the delays in Hamilton’s new contract.

Talks over a new deal initially began in 2017 and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff would have been hoping that the 33-year-old would have put pen to paper by this point.

Despite Hamilton calmly claiming that the situation was all under control, Red Bull boss Christian Horner believes there may be more to the situation than meets the eye.

Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix, Horner claimed that the amount of money Hamilton might potentially be asking for could be a major sticking point.

“I should think it’s such a grotesque amount of money that Toto [Wolff] is talking about, it probably is what’s making his and Niki’s [Lauda] eyes water at the moment.

“He (Hamilton) has an expensive lifestyle. He’s a four-time world champion and I doubt he’s cheap. I can only envisage that that’s probably got something to do with the delay.”

Hamilton clinched tenth spot on Forbes’ list of highest paid athletes in the world last year, joining the likes of Lebron James, Lionel Messi and Christiano Ronaldo in the top ten.

If Horner is to be believed though, Hamilton clearly has an eye on moving higher up that list in the coming years.

With Hamilton already earning obscene amounts of money, it would come as no surprise if Horner’s comments prove to be true.

Just sign on the dotted line Lewis and get back to racing!