Nando wrote:I don't think any team can guarantee a driver sucess, they will know that answer in AUS Q3.
If we are going by modern day sucess Brawn has won a title lter then Mclaren and he has numerous titles before that under his belt.
No doubt mclaren can build quick cars but they just cant get it together.
If it werent for trulli we would have laughed at Mclaren by now.
In terms of championships they are on the verge of being a laughing stock with that budget.
They havent won a WCC in 14 years.
From Hamiltons point of view it seems mclaren is the sinkint boat, not Mercedes.
It also seems he sees this as a project that needs developing as im sure he knows where Mercedes have been for the last three years.
At first i thought wtf are you doing Ham but the more i think about it i think man im glad you jumped that ship before it goes downhill again.
I agree that McLaren as a team has at various points lost the plot from a position of strength. But it doesn't look like Hamilton has left McLaren because of McLaren's underperformance. If McLaren were more relenting in their commercial negotiations (which btw I think Whitmarsh completely blew) my sense is Hamilton would have stayed at McLaren despite their bloopers this year. It appears he started seeking out other teams (and rightly so perhaps) only once McLaren, unbelievably, proposed a pay cut. Even as negotiation posturing, this would have been infuriating, and hence possibly the approach to Mercedes in the first place.
If we were to refer to historical performance, then the Honda and BAR days should also be reckoned as well in my view. Even the Brawn title may more be an aberration rather than a real reflection of the team's ability to develop a championship winning car. Once the other teams developed their double diffusors, the BGP-001 no longer looked like a work of genius as initially perceived.
True, Brawn has those titles from the Ferrari days. But once we give due credit to Byrne as the designer of those utterly dominant cars and Todt as the TP, it would look like Brawn was not the key behind those titles.
Hence, a move to this team based on a perception of some latent potential to win WDCs over and above McLaren's abilities (despite their admitted fallibilities) is a rather bold move.
Just to clarify, I am not judging Hamilton's move in the sense of right or wrong as some other posters are suggesting. It is just that in my view, the basis of his move makes some kind of sense only once the commercial aspects are factored in. Not that there is anything wrong whatsoever with that.
