Nicki Lauda urges Lewis Hamilton to join 'super team'

A decision on Lewis Hamilton's future is expected imminently, with Niki Lauda likely to be offered a senior role at Mercedes in the event that the 2008 world champion signs for the team.

Although McLaren sounded increasingly confident over the weekend that Hamilton would agree terms on a renewal of his five-year contract, his future remains far from certain with Mercedes still hopeful of luring the 27 year-old to Brackley.

Lauda, the three-time world champion, has apparently been instrumental in their overtures, selling Hamilton a vision of a 'super team' spearheaded by the Briton and Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn.

The Austrian was also engaged as an intermediary by Mercedes in their negotiations with Bernie Ecclestone over the new Concorde Agreement, a tripartite pact that governs Formula One's commercial arrangement.

He was famously scathing of Hamilton after his collision with McLaren team-mate Jenson Button at last year's Canadian Grand Prix, when he said that Hamilton's driving had been "completely mad" and added that if he continued in that vein it would "result in someone -getting killed".

Lauda himself was almost killed at the Nurburgring in 1976, suffering severe burns to his head. But the Austrian remains a firm admirer of Hamilton's raw speed.

F1 now waits with bated breath for Hamilton's final decision, with an announcement expected before next week's Japanese Grand Prix.

Hamilton, whose retirement from the lead in Sunday's Singapore Grand Prix meant he fell 52 points behind Ferrari's Fernando Alonso in the drivers' championship, is weighing up offers from McLaren and Mercedes, even though the latter's owner, Daimler, has not yet committed publicly to Ecclestone's new commercial deal.

McLaren have said Hamilton would have to take a reduction in his salary, which is estimated at 15 pounds million per year, although they are thought to have improved their offer in recent weeks. Mercedes, meanwhile, are thought to have matched Hamilton's salary with various performance-related incentives.

Ecclestone told ESPN yesterday that, as far as he understood it, Hamilton had made up his mind to leave McLaren a few weeks ago but that he was less sure now.

"I don't think Hamilton knows what he will do," the F1 chief executive said. "These last couple or three races he has been doing very well. Before that, why he was upset I don't know, but he was definitely going to move no matter what. He had made up his mind. Whether he has changed now a little bit I don't know."

That is what McLaren appear to believe. Team principal Martin -Whitmarsh was noticeably bullish over the weekend, even after -Hamilton's retirement. "I think we're a good team together," he said. "We don't always get it right but Lewis is doing a great job in the team at the moment. We'll see what we can do. I'm not going to make any -predictions.

"We are inevitably disappointed after the retirement in Singapore but we are a strong team. We are seeing a stronger, more resolute Lewis than we have seen for a while and he will bounce back in Japan. Lewis will not give up and neither will we."

Whitmarsh hinted after the race that Button might start to sacrifice his own title hopes to help Hamilton. "Jenson has had a conversation with me, he initiated it," Whitmarsh said. "He is an immensely competitive individual, but he's a team player.

"Things that happen in the future will come from within him. I'll never ask and I don't want to ask.

"If he chooses to do something in the best interest of the team, that's up to him."