Hamilton to Mercedes

I am curious to hear your views in relation to the Hamilton/Mclaren saga. I know this was discussed last season when he was not a happy bunny, but all appears rosey at the moment, or does it? It is reported that he has indicated that all is well with Mclaren and he intends to stay, but will not discuss a new contract until later in the year.

The results and the car appear to be positive, Hammilton appears content so what would be the reason to delay on sigining? Is it just money, his team mate or is he still looking at other drives for next season? I cant personally see a better drive/salary package available to him outside of Mclaren but I just get this gut feeling that he many not stay at Mclaren next year.

Any inside knowledge out there?

 

Difficult one, I personally think he will stay. After all what they have done for him I just think he will appreciate that. Never know though, Mercedes have been linked with him and he is very good friends with Rosberg after all.

 

Hamilton is pretty much the spark that could ignite this year's driver market. With seats potentially available at Ferrari (Massa), Red Bull (Webber) and Mercedes (Schumacher), you can't exactly blame him for taking his time over the decision.

Whether he leaves Mclaren for me depends more on Button's form. I get something approaching a Prost/Senna vibe from those two nowadays, perhaps they will push each other to breaking point. The logical destination if he does decide to leave - which is looking admittedly more unlikely at the moment - would be Mercedes, where he could be reunited with Rosberg and have a good shot at a WDC-winning car.

 

Yes, I agree with this. Why rush when he doesn't have to? Better to wait and see what happens. I expect him to stay though.

 

He's waiting to see if Webber extends his contract again.

 

RBR had the best car for a couple of seasons, there's no guarantee they'll get back to being the best, statistically there's only 2 teams that race consistently at the sharp end, McLaren and Ferrari, to go elsewhere is a massive gamble, it all depnds on how the WDC unfolds and the team dynamic if it boils down to Button v Hamilton at the business end of the season, it could go all Alonso.

 

Seb has made it very clear when he feels RBR fading, he's going to jump ship to Ferrari or Mercedes come 2014. It's probably best that Lewis signs for McLaren again as they have been in the sharp end much more than RBR have over the past 10 years and it looks like they will get the WCC this year for producing the best car out of the blocks.

 

He may be happy at McLaren, but if he really wanted to re-sign with them he would already be in talks with them.

Didn't he say a few months ago that if was going to re-sign, he'd do it early in the season? If everything was great at McLaren like he says it is, what would stop him signing? Sounds to me like he's now waiting to hear from other teams; is McLaren his second choice?

Button staying with McLaren long-term might be a factor. What top driver likes to be comfortably outperformed by his teammate? Most drivers in that situation would switch to another top team if they had the chance (and I'm sure Hamilton believes he can beat Rosberg, Vettel and Alonso in the same car). So it could be that Hamilton is using these next few races to assess the chances of Button beating him again in the championship - after all, if you can't beat your teammate, you won't be the champion.

There's also the question of whether he's wants No.1 driver status. Mercedes would give that to him upon arrival. Red Bull and Ferrari would at least give him the chance to earn that status. At McLaren, even if he does beat Button, Whitmarsh will ensure there is driver equality. The fact that McLaren will only back Hamilton if Button is mathematically out of contention hurts his chances of winning the championship. One of the reasons he won in 2008 was because Kovalainen was his lackey.

I believe next year Hamilton will either be at McLaren or Mercedes. With Rosberg's dominant win last Sunday, Mercedes proved they are now a top team - one that is prepared to build the team around Lewis. I think he'll be there.

 

I've been saying for quite a while that if he does leave McLaren that I could see him being lured by Mercedes. However, I don't think the win at the weekend has much to do with Hamiltions current contract position.

If he's considering a move next season, I imagine there will have already been some kind of preliminary discussion and would be quite rightly weighing up his odds.

I could certainly see how the prospect of #1 status at Mercedes with a long term contract could be something to seriously chew on if it were out there as an offer though.

 

Judging by the present Mercedes team performance, Hamilton may well be considering a move from McLaren, but its not likely, is it ?

Personally, I think Lewis is like a stick of rock and has the McLaren stamp through him, anyway Ron has promised him one of his sportscars if he achieves his target WDC wins.

 

I think if he has a "happy" season he'll stay with McLaren. If he had a "sad" season he'll move on to try and improve his fortunes. At his current rate I can only see him at McLaren next year, but we're only 3 races in.

 

To be honest 2013 could be the year Mercedes really get it together and produce something worty to challenge the WDC+WCC from the word go. All that investment into their base by Mercedes looks to have paid off this year, and with a higher WCC place this year would bring even more money.

It's his choice but remember how long it's taken McLaren to produce the best car since 07-08 it's been over 3-4 years you could say.

(09) One dog then into the best, (10) Title challenger, (11) Clear 2nd challenger to RBR, (12) Best car by about 3 tenths at the start.

So after this WDC season will McLaren have another slump for 3-4 years until they produce the best car again? This is what Lewis must be thinking and I'm sure he will be looking at all angles for his best intrest.

He also has to be careful come 2014 when the whole foundation gets changed again, will Renault or Ferrari produce a better engine than Mercedes this time round? Will RBR still be around after Vettel and Newey leave, will McLaren go back to 2009 etc etc etc.....

 

I have said a few times that I expect next year the Mercades will be the top Mercades powered car. If Lewis starts to think the same I'm sure he will try to get a seat there.

However I don't think that he'll go anywhere. I expect him to resign for McLaren.

 

These are me thoughts aswell.

At what point do Mclaren have to start looking for a back up in case Lewis doesnt sign? My questions was intially to try and understand why Lewis wouldn't sign, but thinking about it now do Mclaren serioulsy have another option? At the moment they have 2 of the best drivers on the grid so would they want to go with another driver (lower salary, less PR etc..) or should they retain at all costs the British dream team line up! Tough one, but Mclaren could get caught with their pants down if Lewis jumps ship at the last minute and there is no other decent driver out there.

 

The driver market usually starts moving around August, so the real silly season will start then.

If Hamilton genuinely does have 4 options then he is right to wait and see which one he thinks will be the best. Doubtless this will bring up the usual old 606 bollocks about him not being loyal to the team that funded his career, but should he have to wait to be sacked before driving for another team? There are very few loyal drivers on the grid. All have shown that if more money or a better opportunity comes their way they will take it.

Question is, who will make the first move?

 

You make some good points in your post, McFerrari; but I believe that included amongst them are a couple of flaws. Therefore, I hope you will consider the following opinion:

• Despite the final points tally, I think it's going a bit far to suggest he was "comfortably outperformed by his teammate".
  
• Initially, you present a good argument about 'status'. In particular, I completely agree with your assessment of what may be on offer at each of the big four teams; and that equal status within a team can reduce the chance of winning a champiionship. However, I strongly disagree with your reference to Kovalainen - which appears to be at odds with your earlier comment about equality at McLaren (which, in my opinion, is correct).

 

As a bit of a Kovalainen fan, I've read interviews from him about his time at Mclaren. I think he felt he was treated equally, but was himself very disappointed with his performances, and admitted he came very close to being sacked halfway through a season. He also felt he needed to go away and prove himself somewhere else, and he feels he's achieved that at Lotus/Caterham. Personally I feel him (and Glock) are good enough for drives in much more competitive cars, although their age may count somewhat against them. Kovalainen has stated that he'd only consider leaving Caterham for a top 4 team, although despite his performances I think an offer is unlikely.

Back on topic, I would imagine most drivers would want to wait until they've seen as much of the other teams hands as possible. Mclaren want him to sign, but they aren't going to sign someone else whilst he waits, so he can take his time and decide where he thinks the best seat will be.

 

Ahh the kid is loyal to them, I dont get that thought he has to be their slave now, he has honoured that contract fully. Lewis has nothing else owed to them since he has made them a bucket load media wise and bought them the number 1 back to the car away from Ferrari. If they started how they finished in 2009 Lewis might of been in the title mix and it's taken them years to catch up and make the best car. Lewis has been patient and it looks like he has got his wish this year, he's got the best car and he needs to start stamping his authority on why McLaren should spend the cash to keep him in. But he shouldn't get too big for his boots as a lot of drivers will eye that seat and going to another team could be the worst choice of his career.

 

come on mate,lewis has not been comfortably outperformed by button.yeah button did a better job last season,but alot of that was down to lewis making stupid mistakes more than anything else.
this season he hasnt made any and is top,speaks for itself really.and looking at the lap times in china,lewis certainly would have beat button in china if he started in second place.he seems to be slowly easing his way into the season,with a new style we havent seen from him.
i think this season as long as he makes very few mistakes will see lewis getting more points than button.
i think he will stay at mclaren,as long as he feels the team are behind him just as much as button,i think lewis likes the challenge of competitive team mates.
i think with lewis its more about whether the team can give him a championship winning car,i dont think he cares to much about who his team mate is.

 

And of course McLaren will not wait forever to firm up their line up, so if he waits too long they may end up giving him an ultimatum of 'sign or be replaced'.

Let's say he did leave (for whatever reasons), who would McLaren replace him with? On the assumption that Perez is likely to go to Ferrari to replace Massa, I don't really see who else is shining like a beacon in the midfield and stands out as a Mclaren driver for 2013.