Lewis Hamilton says there is no rush to sort out his contract for next year dismissing as "rubbish" talk that he is poised to make the switch to Mercedes.
After frantic speculation about his future ever since former team boss Eddie Jordan claimed that Hamilton would be moving to Mercedes in 2013, the 2008 World Champion insisted that there was no urgency to get his future finalized, and that a lot of the reports in the media talking about his intentions were wide of the mark.
"I don't have a timeline," he told Reuters news agency reporters at a media event in Mumbai. "My focus is on trying to win this World Championship.
"Of course I do have to have those things sorted out but I do have people in the background working on those contract negotiations. There's a lot of speculation; there's a lot of stories that aren't true."
Hamilton said his view of the situation was very different to the media storm that has been created about his future, as he made it clear that all that mattered to him was winning this year's championship for McLaren.
"I think we're all wise enough to understand that people write things and that what is written is not necessarily what is true," he said. "I think the most important thing is that I'm 100 percent focused on winning with this team and taking them forward.
"I've been with the team since I was 13 and we've worked so hard since 2009 to try and win this championship – and hopefully, finally, we're in the position where we can. So the most important thing is that I do not get distracted by all the rubbish that's been around."
Although Hamilton is 27 points adrift of Fernando Alonso in the title standings, he sees every chance of closing that gap down over the remainder of the campaign.
"We lost a lot of points at the beginning. We were on the front row in the first seven or eight races where we should have won all of them," he said. "We're in a very, very strong position, we're getting stronger and we will get stronger through the rest of this year."