With pre-season testing almost upon us, there is one massive elephant in the room in the Formula 1 world.

That being that Lewis Hamilton is still yet to pen a deal for 2021 with Mercedes.

It was reported earlier this week by De Telegraaf newspaper, as per Formula1News, that negotiations between Hamilton and Mercedes had hit a wall as the former is pushing for another multi-year deal, whilst the latter only want to sign the seven-time world champion for another year.

The Dutch news outlet also reported the same news that has been reported by many others recently, that being that Hamilton’s demand for a pay rise is also causing talks to stall.

F1 news outlet Formula1News have claimed that they reached out to Mercedes for a comment on the Hamilton situation, however, they remain reluctant to comment on the matter and instead told the publication that they “don’t comment on speculation and rumours, and there are a lot of them about right now.”

They further continued their message by stating that it shouldn’t be taken with any indication that what has been reported in De Telegraaf is correct and that it is “simply our house policy not to engage with speculation.”

With the situation between Hamilton and Mercedes being very much up in the air at the minute, speculation has now started to arise that George Russell could potentially replace him next season.

Mercedes do still remain confident that they will manage to keep Hamilton on their books for the upcoming season. This comes after team principal Toto Wolff insisted that a deal between the two would be signed “sooner or later” back in December.

Wolff also went on to state that the only reason that a deal wasn’t penned during the 2020 season was because of other priorities that the team had to manage.