The world champion’s father Anthony Hamilton is reportedly considering whether he should advise his son to leave the team with which he won last year’s F1 championship.

In the aftermath of the ‘liargate’ scandal, which saw the near-tearful World Champion offer a grovelling public apology on Friday in Sepang after admitting he misled Australian GP stewards upon the instruction of McLaren’s Sporting Director Dave Ryan, The Daily Mail claims that ‘Hamilton’s future with McLaren is on a knife-edge’.

Lewis’ father is understood to be thinking about turning his back on McLaren, the team who supported Lewis through the ranks at an estimated cost of £5million, and turn his attention to a rival team less prone to shooting themselves in the foot,’ the newspaper reports.

‘The biggest stumbling block to engineering an escape route concerns where to place Lewis.

Ferrari seem to be the hot favourites, if he can worm his way out of his five-year contract worth around £75m, but they are currently as slow as McLaren. He is into his second year of the deal but various get-out clauses could see him out of the door soon.

In his column for The Sunday Times this weekend, Martin Brundle, a former F1 driver turned pundit who also acted as an advisor to David Coulthard during his racing career, speculated whether the details of the ‘Liargate’ scandal may itself offer Lewis Hamilton an escape route.

Team McLaren could also now be perceived to be in breach of Lewis’s contract for bringing him into disrepute especially as a senior team member has taken the whole rap,’ Brundle wrote. ‘This would make Lewis a free agent if he wanted to switch teams.’

Lewis meanwhile, is expected to engage in talks with the team at their HQ in Woking this week.

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