Lewis Hamilton says he will not dump Mercedes for Red Bull or Ferrari

Formula 1 superstar Lewis Hamilton has dismissed rumours that he is set to leave Mercedes for another team, such as Red Bull or Ferrari.

Even though his current team have an underperforming car for the second year in a row, the seven-time world champion is going to stay put.

"I still have 100 percent belief in this team, as it is my family and I've been here a long time, so I don't plan on going anywhere else," he told Sky Sports.

"But we all need a kick, we all need to get on. The proof is in the pudding, as we've seen where the performance is and how people are extracting the performance, and we've got to now start making some bold decisions, some big moves in order to close the gap to these guys.

"Hopefully at some point during the year, we're hopeful we might be able to close the gap.

"But, at that point, it will be probably too late in terms of fighting for a championship, but we can still turn some heads hopefully."

Rumor in Italy that Hamilton was looking for a new F1 seat

The interview followed a rumour that originated Italy regarding a hypothetical scenario of Hamilton racing for another team in a bid to win the Formula 1 title.

He only wanted to talk about the details of his possible renewal with Mercedes, discussing the lack of performance based incentives.

"There are no performance clauses," Hamilton said.

"We are in talks, just in the process of going through the motions of what that looks like, what the future looks like, what we want to do.

"We are always looking to continuously challenge ourselves rather than just doing a driver's contract like everyone does.

"What can we do? We did the Ignite partnership last year on how we can promote diversity within the sport, just exploring different avenues and what else we can do.

"I'm fully integrated within Mercedes-Benz. I've been with them for such a long time, since I was 13, so I'm very proud of the brand and the business, what they do, what they stand for and the impact they have throughout the world.

"But, you can always do more, so discussions are around what else we can do together to lift people up."