[Itgb]

Originally Posted by UltimateBMW

I've been seeing a lot of poeple saying he has turned his back, betrayed, etc. Regardless of your opinion of the move, this line of thought is a bit ridiculous. In your mind, was he forever locked to only drive with McLaren? What about when McLaren are ready to dump him, can he not go anywhere else? Or only when they feel they've had their fill of him is he allowed to finally leave?

He gave McLaren their first WDC after a 10 year dry-spell, as well as a number of wins and good runs at the championship. And has driven for the team for 5 years in F1. Like/dislike McLaren, like/dislike Hamilton, but neither owe each other anything. That is what the contracts are for. Don't forget that this is a business and sentiment, while maybe a pleasant notion, has no place in the paddock.

In the same thought, is Perez turning his back on Ferrari for going off and signing up with McLaren? The answer is obviously no.

Of course, this is a business just like anything else; loyalty is a thing of the past. Hamilton is free to go wherever he chooses. Maybe he wanted a change, but when your current employer has given you a championship caliber car for maybe all but one of your seasons with them, it doesn't make sense. You are going to a Mercedes team that has won 1 race in 3 seasons and is barely ever on the podium. Yes there's a possibility that they could gain an edge when the engines are switched over to the V6s in 2014, but that's pure speculation. In just the last week, McLaren upped their offer to Hamilton, so it sounded like they were trying to get him to stay and wanted him. But in the end of the day, my feeling is he decided on Mercedes for the wrong reasons(money, fame, etc.).

The Perez situation is completely different. He had no contract offer from Ferrari and basically had his potential boss saying he wasn't ready yet. If I was in his situation, I would've signed with McLaren too.

Just to point out, Webber was in a similar situation a couple of months ago. He's been with Red Bull a long time and Ferrari made him an offer. Most drivers would get all googly eyed with a contract offer from Ferrari in front of them, but not Webber. He knew his best chance at winning would be to stay with Red Bull who have provided him a championship capable car for the last couple of years. Ferrari would most likely have given him more money, more fame, more glamour, but he's a driver first and made a bold call to turn Ferrari down and stay with Red Bull. Hamilton is in it for the money and fame more than wining championships. His XIX management team have steered him to Mercedes to "raise his global profile", not to win F1 championships.

Just my .02.

[thebishman]

Red Bull, McClaren and Ferrari are the top tier in F1 and have been for years, with Mercedes, Williams, Lotus etc being in the middle; (yes Brawn won in 2009 but that was primarily due to their diffuser and Button combo). Hamilton's chances of ever becoming an F1 champion again are now marginal, and he has allowed his management team to place money over titles. I for one am really disappointed in this decision as I thought he had more 'hunger' for Championships versus $s.
Bish

[justinnum1]

Originally Posted by thebishman

Red Bull, McClaren and Ferrari are the top tier in F1 and have been for years, with Mercedes, Williams, Lotus etc being in the middle; (yes Brawn won in 2009 but that was primarily due to their diffuser and Button combo). Hamilton's chances of ever becoming an F1 champion again are now marginal, and he has allowed his management team to place money over titles. I for one am really disappointed in this decision as I thought he had more 'hunger' for Championships versus $s.
Bish

Hard to win championships when our team continually makes amateur mistakes.
Pit stops, strategy, each week the mclaren team finds a way to fail Lewis.

[NISFAN]

McLaren have the best set up in F1, but their attitude stinks, well Ron Dennis' attitude stinks, and he IS McLaren.
Over the years they have gotten rid of the best brains in the business (Adrian Newey), and ended up with a clever committee. No singular person able to make that controversial but potentially great decision. This goes from car design all the way through to race day tactics. They rely on what the computer says. That is not a good thing to raw drivers like LH ....and of course Perez.

On the Mercedes front, I think Ross Braun will be able to provide LH with more power over the race tactics, allow him to go for that hard charging 3 stopper, instead of the McLaren safe 2 stopper. Time will tell.

For sure the genius that is Ross Braun will give Mercedes the upper hand come 2014 season.

[johanness]

Originally Posted by thebishman

Red Bull, McClaren and Ferrari are the top tier in F1 and have been for years, with Mercedes, Williams, Lotus etc being in the middle; (yes Brawn won in 2009 but that was primarily due to their diffuser and Button combo). Hamilton's chances of ever becoming an F1 champion again are now marginal, and he has allowed his management team to place money over titles. I for one am really disappointed in this decision as I thought he had more 'hunger' for Championships versus $s.
Bish

I agree 100%.

Originally Posted by justinnum1

Hard to win championships when our team continually makes amateur mistakes.
Pit stops, strategy, each week the mclaren team finds a way to fail Lewis.

You do watch the races right? They currently have THE best pit stops and one of the quickest cars on track both in qualy and race trim. Face it... Lewis chose $$$ (and whatever 'fame' he thinks he's going to receive) over anything else.

As soon as the bubbles go flat in his champagne... he's going to realize just how much worse of a car he's in (or at least compared to what he's been used to).
He's an emotional princess about the small mistakes McLaren have made (yet worked out for the most part)... and not in a good way. Just wait until the dust settles and he's a constant 4-5-6th place consistently (I'm being optimistic here, given the fields track record this year). Good-bye 'better' qual-sessions too, with Merc's double-DRS not allowed next year. I hope Brawn has a rabbit in his hat and a big box of tissue for LH.

[UltimateBMW]

All in all, only time will tell if this is the right decision or not.

Pros: #1 Status (with total team devotion and no second guessing even in just conspiracy theories), Works team with all the resources it comes with, Ross Brawn's strategic mind, engine leverage if the new Formula makes it through, potential Global brand status for him. (This may be a plus for the sport over all as well. More attention particularly in the USA will bring more money to F1 as a whole.)

Cons: The Car, Time (it may take a while for him to get settled at MB GP and get everything suiting him).

Really, it seems to all come down to whether MB GP can produce a competitive car for him. But there is certainly plenty of potential for the future with all these pieces falling into place, you'd be pretty hard headed to deny that. It even seems like Brawn is trying to pull a Red Bull in building up MB GP. It took RBR 5 years to get to the top and win their first championship.

Regarding all the talk about choosing the money, Whitmarsh went on record saying that McLaren offered Hamilton a deal that they thought to be the most money of any current F1 driver. So that throws a wrench in the money grabbing theories. Overall though, this argument is moot as all of the top drivers demand high salaries. I don't see anyone knocking Alonso for his substantial salary at Ferrari, who right now is the highest paid in the sport.

[GeeRam]

Originally Posted by UltimateBMW

He gave McLaren their first WDC after a 10 year dry-spell, as well as a number of wins and good runs at the championship.

McLaren don't care about the WDC, only about winning the Constructors championship.

Only potential ace up Mercedes sleeve is the fact that the 2013 car should be the first one that will have full imput from Aldo Costa.

Good move for Perez.

Shame Schumacher ends his F1 career by effectively getting 'sacked' - unless he takes the Sauber drive..?
(he might do given the links he has with Sauber from the Mercedes Junior Team days when MS was in the Sauber-Mercedes sportscar team)

[UltimateBMW]

McLaren definitely profited from having a World Champion in their own car, so they absolutely cared. And lets not forget that they would have had the WCC if not for getting caught with Spygate. (Whether they were at fault or not. I still love McLaren.)

[GuyOh]

I understand why Lewis would want to leave mclaren, but at the same time, i feel mclaren would provide a better car

[GeeRam]

Originally Posted by UltimateBMW

McLaren definitely profited from having a World Champion in their own car, so they absolutely cared.

McLaren's priority is always in winning the WCC, not the WDC. Williams is the same, as was Lotus, back in the Chapman era. Sure, as a by product, they will make what they can out of one of their drivers being WDC, but, there's no trophy in the cabinet at Woking for a WDC
Ferrari have always concentrated more on the WDC than the WCC.

[NISFAN]

Originally Posted by GeeRam

......but, there's no trophy in the cabinet at Woking for a WDC

You are wrong there, every drivers trophy IS in the cabinet in Woking. The driver gets to keep a replica trophy, the real trophy belongs to McLaren, and I believe this is consistant amongst other teams too.

[1BMW4fun]

You have to look at a bigger picture for Mercedes. In the financial side, I think this is a calculated move from Bernie to keep Mercedes in F1, with more flexible commercial rights and LH to seal the deal. On the racing side, look what Ross Brawn has finally put together this year for a techincal crew, they arent exactly beginers, and whether they could create a competitive car remains to be seen. But this is what they sold to Lewis and their plans on how to be sucessful. Lewis fears that he will not be able to maintain his current performance level for too long, he is at his peformance peak and he wants to capitalize it so he could obtain that winning "fame".

McLaren mind set to win is not the same as Ferrari or Red Bull or any other teams. It is also their weakness as to why they have not win anything for the past 13 years beside a WDC. Sure they have won more GPs next to Ferrari but over how many decades compare to say RB. I would say McLaren has the best and dare I say even better than Ferrari at times in term of development and engineering which explain why they could recover in such a short time. It is their pit wall operation and strategy which produced some major failures. Like I said above, this is the 3rd time they let a WDC leave the team.

[UltimateBMW]

Here is an interesting blog that tends to agree with your assessment.
http://thejudge13.com/2012/09/30/lew...ercedes-in-f1/

[Shorestyle031]

Originally Posted by thebishman

Red Bull, McClaren and Ferrari are the top tier in F1 and have been for years, with Mercedes, Williams, Lotus etc being in the middle; (yes Brawn won in 2009 but that was primarily due to their diffuser and Button combo). Hamilton's chances of ever becoming an F1 champion again are now marginal, and he has allowed his management team to place money over titles. I for one am really disappointed in this decision as I thought he had more 'hunger' for Championships versus $s.
Bish

I think Mercedes and Lewis are hoping for the turbo engine in 2014.

[Shorestyle031]

Originally Posted by thebishman

Red Bull, McClaren and Ferrari are the top tier in F1 and have been for years, with Mercedes, Williams, Lotus etc being in the middle; (yes Brawn won in 2009 but that was primarily due to their diffuser and Button combo). Hamilton's chances of ever becoming an F1 champion again are now marginal, and he has allowed his management team to place money over titles. I for one am really disappointed in this decision as I thought he had more 'hunger' for Championships versus $s.
Bish

I think Mercedes and Lewis are hoping for the turbo engine in 2014.

[JC919]

Now I can wear the McLaren shirt I bought at the Singapore GP with confidence. Hamilton is obviously a very, very gifted driver, but he's a bit of a baby. It's definitely time to move on from the team he's been with since he was a teenager.

The true winner in all of this is Perez.

[KingOfJericho]

Originally Posted by JC919

Now I can wear the McLaren shirt I bought at the Singapore GP with confidence. Hamilton is obviously a very, very gifted driver, but he's a bit of a baby. It's definitely time to move on from the team he's been with since he was a teenager.

The true winner in all of this is Perez.

Agreed. Also, to the person who said they're the best when it comes to pit stops - they might be very quick when they have it together, but they have made some crucial errors this year and last. I don't think you can have as many complete failures in the pits as they have and still claim top spot.

[Boostin FD]

It will be interesting to see what happens if they decide not to go with V6 Turbo engines... Ecclestone doesn't seem to like them at all as they "Don't sound like F1".

What will Merc do then? Hamilton will be fighting for the 4th or 5th position. Sad

[1BMW4fun]

Originally Posted by Boostin FD

It will be interesting to see what happens if they decide not to go with V6 Turbo engines... Ecclestone doesn't seem to like them at all as they "Don't sound like F1".

What will Merc do then? Hamilton will be fighting for the 4th or 5th position. Sad

It is not if they will go to a new engine, it is when they will go. Mercedes just signed the Concorde agreement which commit them to be in F1 for serveral year. I suspect the whole Eccleston does not like what he hears is a tactic to delay the engine role out as Ferrari is not up to speed with their engine compare to Renault and Mercedes. Like it or not, you can't have an engine development freeze for so long. As for Mercedes being competitive, they have a new enforce to that will look over Ross shoulder for results, that enforcer is a certain Mr. Lauda.

[KingOfJericho]

I really don't understand why Formula 1 is going green while they still fly all of the equipment around on fuel guzzling jets that were built in the 80s. Which has a larger environmental impact?

[UltimateBMW]

On engines, if they don't implement the new formula I would at least like to see them lift the development ban. Engines have been locked for quite a while now and they use to be one of the major places for innovation and performance gain.

Originally Posted by KingOfJericho

I really don't understand why Formula 1 is going green while they still fly all of the equipment around on fuel guzzling jets that were built in the 80s. Which has a larger environmental impact?

There is a difference between being green behind the scenes and being publicly green. There is also a difference between employing green methods and developing green technology. I also doubt that their planes were made in the 80s, but I understand what you are alleging. Considering these statements may give you insight as to why Formula 1 is 'going green'.

I believe they are embracing green methods in certain areas on an as-needed basis because the world as a whole is buying into it. Government has certainly already bought into it. However, with Formula E the pressure may be off F1 to continue this development.

[KingOfJericho]

What do you suppose the backlash would be if NASCAR decided to go with turbo 6cyl engines? There would be outrage. I agree with Bernie (for the first time ever) - it just doesn't sound like a formula one car without that high pitched scream.