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Hamilton to leave McLaren to join Mercedes
Topic Started: Sep 28 2012, 04:38 AM (1,457 Views)
P1
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Jack,Sep 29 2012
11:45 AM
Bad choice for a few coins. The McLaren was (is) a winner car.

Maybe its Hamilton's promoter XIX Entertainment that are the ones scraping in most coins from this deal and therefore encouraged Lewis to sign... <think>

Definately a move that has many winners and more loosers down the pitlane:
Winners:
Mercedes
XIX Entertainment
Hamilton? Sport-wise only if he can turn Mercedes into a winning car/team...

Loosers:
Michael Schumacher lost his Mercedes seat.
McLaren is now without a top driver (sorry Button), first time since 2002.
Hamilton also carried superstar status, so McLaren is bound to loose sponsorship.
Sauber loosing Perez, and the serious sponsor money from Carlos Slim he brings with him.
Ferrari looses Perez from their driver academy. (if he turns out to be a star driver)
Paul Di Resta lost his chance to move to Mercedes.
Rosberg, if it appears obvious to all that he is just mediocre compared to Hamilton.
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Steelstallions
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He will go the way of Jack Villenerve, mega bucks deal with BAR, and never get heard of again. He may also get spanked on the track by Rosberg who is younger than Button who also can get the upper hand on the track with Lewis.
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Rob
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After thinking it over, maybe Lewis believes Merc is a loophole from world beater?

Anyway I bet Massa is breathing a little easier today.
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Rob
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Grieves,Sep 28 2012
11:30 AM
I'd love to see Schumacher back at Ferrari as a No. 2 driver... <peek>

It is possible. As much as people slam on Shumi as an arrogant driver, he still saw himself as an employee of the team.
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Steelstallions
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Rob,Sep 29 2012
02:54 PM
Grieves,Sep 28 2012
11:30 AM
I'd love to see Schumacher back at Ferrari as a No. 2 driver... <peek>

It is possible. As much as people slam on Shumi as an arrogant driver, he still saw himself as an employee of the team.

Considering how bad Massa's form is compared to his team mates, even an old MS would be an improvement on Massa.
Sadly I think he has burned his bridges and prefer to remember MS in an unbeatable Ferrari and almost clinching a 8th title in what was really his last year in F1. I would not want to see him in a Ferrari getting mediocre results.
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TheCompleteGuitarist
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Don't write Button off, he was always been in Lewis's shadow, and probably had to accept Lewis's needs in car design. I imagine their car design/performance to stabilize under JB and then to shine.

Lewis has chosen a wild card and the advice of a company whose main interests are themselves, not his.
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Pasta
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Damon Hill has some interesting perspectives to support why Mclaren might not be the best place for Hamilton. The trophy thing is symptomatic and I too have wondered about the justification for their policy (only team in F1 with this requirement to keep original driver's trophy??)

Hill, who won the 1996 World Championship title with Williams, believes the 27-year-old has made the right call.

Quote:
 
"Lewis has been like a caged bird at McLaren," Hill told the Daily Mail.

"He'd been managed to within an inch of his life. I can't blame him for looking to move elsewhere. Lewis needed to leave McLaren to stretch his wings."


Sticking issues between Hamilton and McLaren related to who keeps the winner's trophy, something McLaren insist on doing, and also advertising space on his race-suit.

Hill added that the apparent attitude that a driver is just a "hired hand" played a role in Hamilton's decision to walk away.

Quote:
 
"I could never get my head around the logic that the team takes the driver's trophy.

"It's the principle, not the trophy, that is at stake. After you have won a Championship, and jumped through a lot of hoops, there is a point when you think: "This is my life". You can have a bellyful of becoming a performing seal. You don't want to be on probation for your whole career.

"Of course, you still have to fight inside the car; but there is a time when, surely, you have proved you can motivate yourself. These are things Lewis has tried to balance.

"This is quite a shift in the power balance in Formula One. It shows a driver is a more important ingredient in the sport than the teams like to think.

"Formula One would do well to remember the public relates to a driver's career path more than any team with the exception of Ferrari. The rest are just operations. To the public, the sport is about the drivers.

"There is a huge disconnect between the philosophy of a team and a driver. Drivers just want to race, they don't see Formula One as a marketing exercise or product development. To a team, a driver is a hired hand. But drivers have a right to a career path. They don't belong to a team."


Hill, though, did acknowledge the fact that moving to Mercedes, who have won just one grand prix in the three years since purchasing the Brawn GP team, is "a risk.

Quote:
 

"Mercedes don't have a track record like McLaren but, as a driver in Formula One, you have to look at what's coming down
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P1
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Great career move advice from Damon Hill !
Arrows 1997 anyone?
<peek>
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Red Andy
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History tells us that when a world champion moves to a team that isn't established as a front-runner, it doesn't usually work out.

Villeneuve and BAR. Fittipaldi and his eponymous team. You could even throw Schumacher and Mercedes in there.

There are much more parallels with these situations than with Schumacher and Ferrari, which is the other one that springs to mind. Ferrari was an established team with a winning pedigree, even if they hadn't won anything for rather a long time.

Mercedes won both titles (as Brawn) back in 2009, but that was mostly down to having a part on their car that other teams hadn't produced, because they had been told it was illegal. Once that issue was resolved the team's advantage disappeared. Apart from that they have no real history of success in F1.

The past is an imperfect guide. Maybe Hamilton can make it work. But for the time being I am sceptical.
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Lex
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Red Andy,Sep 30 2012
11:02 PM
History tells us that when a world champion moves to a team that isn't established as a front-runner, it doesn't usually work out.

Villeneuve and BAR. Fittipaldi and his eponymous team. You could even throw Schumacher and Mercedes in there.

There are much more parallels with these situations than with Schumacher and Ferrari, which is the other one that springs to mind. Ferrari was an established team with a winning pedigree, even if they hadn't won anything for rather a long time.

Mercedes won both titles (as Brawn) back in 2009, but that was mostly down to having a part on their car that other teams hadn't produced, because they had been told it was illegal. Once that issue was resolved the team's advantage disappeared. Apart from that they have no real history of success in F1.

The past is an imperfect guide. Maybe Hamilton can make it work. But for the time being I am sceptical.

Actually, it wasn't illegal as Brawn were able to continue racing with it for the rest of the season.

The reason the other teams caught up was that Brawn had no cashflow to invest in ne car developments.

JB naturally felt the pressure but was able to hold on (just)

Roll on a couple of years and Vettel had the confidence, car and mor importantly, the cash to develop the car through the season.

That's a rider before anyone starts quoting 2011...

Edit: I really f***ing hate the iPad preemptive spelling feature <fu>
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TheCompleteGuitarist
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P1,Sep 30 2012
06:33 PM
Great career move advice from Damon Hill !
Arrows 1997 anyone?
<peek>

Damon will have known how stifling it would have been working in a very restrictive environment at Williams also.

And as for Hills career move he didn't really get much choice considering that Williams didn't offer him the chance to renew despite looking likely to win the title. I also think he's right about Lewis, however I certainly am under no illusion that Lewis is going to do a Michael Schumacher or even an Alonso at Mercedes. If they cannot make him champion the same way RBR made Vettel one, he'll get naffed off over there too.
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TheCompleteGuitarist
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Red Andy,Sep 30 2012
09:02 PM
But for the time being I am sceptical.

Agreed!
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Red Andy
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Lex,Sep 30 2012
09:23 PM
Actually, it wasn't illegal as Brawn were able to continue racing with it for the rest of the season.

No, it wasn't illegal. The World Motor Sports Council confirmed this.

But some teams (Renault, for one) had approached the FIA with double-diffuser designs before the season, and been told not to bother producing them as they would be ruled illegal.

It was a problem, as ever, with the ambiguity of the technical regulations, being interpreted differently by different sources. In some ways you can just say, "that's F1," but there's no doubt it gave Brawn an advantage other teams hadn't been able to exploit.
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Norbert
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Pasta,Sep 30 2012
08:40 AM
Hill added that the apparent attitude that a driver is just a "hired hand" played a role in Hamilton's decision to walk away.

Erm, isn't that what they are? The team wants a driver, so they hire one....
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u4coffee
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Norbert,Oct 1 2012
08:31 AM
Pasta,Sep 30 2012
08:40 AM
Hill added that the apparent attitude that a driver is just a "hired hand" played a role in Hamilton's decision to walk away.

Erm, isn't that what they are? The team wants a driver, so they hire one....

Unless you pay for your seat... Then you hire the team to give you a car <thumbsup>
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