2016 Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team - Mercedes

[Jolle]

With Hamilton, as much as I am a fan of him and admire him for his driving skill, I sense that this is one aspect where he is rather limited and I am unsure how close he is to his own team of engineers and the racing staff.

Talking to people I know who work at the factory (or who have relatives who do) he's a nice bloke at the get togethers. For example, a friend's sister is a cleaner (I think) and apparently he chatted as happily to her as anyone. No obvious "I'm a star" attitude.

If there was any problem at McLaren, it was probably more to do with the tight regiment there, the complete inability of self reflection of Ron and McLaren as a team. It's a bad place to grow (up). Drivers and senior engineers have bloomed after they left McLaren. For Hamilton prob more like living at your strikt parents house and moving out to your own place, with some rebels to come along. At McLaren I can't imagine you're allowed to talk to the cleaning lady, her time must be deployed as efficient as possible, same as you for a driver. Chatting is loosing time and with loosing time you loose the race.

[dans79]

With Hamilton, as much as I am a fan of him and admire him for his driving skill, I sense that this is one aspect where he is rather limited and I am unsure how close he is to his own team of engineers and the racing staff.

Talking to people I know who work at the factory (or who have relatives who do) he's a nice bloke at the get togethers. For example, a friend's sister is a cleaner (I think) and apparently he chatted as happily to her as anyone. No obvious "I'm a star" attitude.

A close friend of mine had dinner with Lewis and Nicole back when they where still together. He said Lewis was very corgagle and easy to talk to. Though they didn't talk about racing as my friend thought it would be bad form.

[FoxHound]

I could not care less what his personality is like. Nor should his engineers.

If he was a total plonker, he wouldn't still be driving at Mercedes, nor have had 6 years at McLaren.
Pseudo-Psychiatric analysis is laughable, with due respect. Hamilton has been Hamilton for the last 30 odd years, and his way of interacting, driving and feedback to engineers has won him a world title at McLaren and 2 at Mercedes.

If we compare this to the amiable Rosberg, who has no titles as of yet, perhaps it is Rosberg that should be a bit more demanding and less agreeable?

[iotar__]

I could not care less what his personality is like. Nor should his engineers.

If he was a total plonker, he wouldn't still be driving at Mercedes, nor have had 6 years at McLaren.
Pseudo-Psychiatric analysis is laughable, with due respect. Hamilton has been Hamilton for the last 30 odd years, and his way of interacting, driving and feedback to engineers has won him a world title at McLaren and 2 at Mercedes.

If we compare this to the amiable Rosberg, who has no titles as of yet, perhaps it is Rosberg that should be a bit more demanding and less agreeable?

- Of course he would, professional sport is full of them.
- Including these sentences in one post is rather contradicting:
A. "I could not care less what his personality is like. Nor should his engineers." "Pseudo-Psychiatric analysis is laughable, with due respect"
B. "Perhaps it is Rosberg that should be a bit more demanding and less agreeable?"
Perhaps a case of double standards?

[Just_a_fan]

Pseudo-Psychiatric analysis is laughable, with due respect.

It's no more laughable than pseudo-technical analysis that is prevalent hereabouts...

[FoxHound]

I could not care less what his personality is like. Nor should his engineers.

If he was a total plonker, he wouldn't still be driving at Mercedes, nor have had 6 years at McLaren.
Pseudo-Psychiatric analysis is laughable, with due respect. Hamilton has been Hamilton for the last 30 odd years, and his way of interacting, driving and feedback to engineers has won him a world title at McLaren and 2 at Mercedes.

If we compare this to the amiable Rosberg, who has no titles as of yet, perhaps it is Rosberg that should be a bit more demanding and less agreeable?

- Of course he would, professional sport is full of them.
- Including these sentences in one post is rather contradicting:
A. "I could not care less what his personality is like. Nor should his engineers." "Pseudo-Psychiatric analysis is laughable, with due respect"
B. "Perhaps it is Rosberg that should be a bit more demanding and less agreeable?"
Perhaps a case of double standards?

No double standards, just the ones you are making up.

Hamilton's personality is on trail, and I'm telling you
A) he's won 3 titles to Rosbergs ZERO in spite of what what people make of his personality
B) He could be the biggest anus on the planet, it does not circumvent point A.
C) If anyone is holding Rosberg up as an example of "how to make friends and influence people", I'll hold up point A once more.

[FoxHound]

Pseudo-Psychiatric analysis is laughable, with due respect.

It's no more laughable than pseudo-technical analysis that is prevalent hereabouts...

Guilty!



http://giphy.com/gifs/c2YyNySJ1CbFC

[ScottB]

I dunno, personally I find Rosberg a bit grating, particularly his attitude in the interviews yesterday.

But ultimately, all we ever see is what the drivers choose to show, Lewis probably shows more of who he actually is than any other driver, both in terms of how he is at race events, and his various activities outwith them. Most of the other guys more or less disappear without trace when they aren't at the track, so to try and guess who might be liked and who isn't within team dynamics is just that; guesswork.

[Just_a_fan]

Guilty!


http://i.makeagif.com/media/7-08-2015/-nUj2H.gif

=D>

[iotar__]

I could not care less what his personality is like. Nor should his engineers.

If he was a total plonker, he wouldn't still be driving at Mercedes, nor have had 6 years at McLaren.
Pseudo-Psychiatric analysis is laughable, with due respect. Hamilton has been Hamilton for the last 30 odd years, and his way of interacting, driving and feedback to engineers has won him a world title at McLaren and 2 at Mercedes.

If we compare this to the amiable Rosberg, who has no titles as of yet, perhaps it is Rosberg that should be a bit more demanding and less agreeable?

- Of course he would, professional sport is full of them.
- Including these sentences in one post is rather contradicting:
A. "I could not care less what his personality is like. Nor should his engineers." "Pseudo-Psychiatric analysis is laughable, with due respect"
B. "Perhaps it is Rosberg that should be a bit more demanding and less agreeable?"
Perhaps a case of double standards?

No double standards, just the ones you are making up.

Hamilton's personality is on trail, and I'm telling you
A) he's won 3 titles to Rosbergs ZERO in spite of what what people make of his personality
B) He could be the biggest anus on the planet, it does not circumvent point A.
C) If anyone is holding Rosberg up as an example of "how to make friends and influence people", I'll hold up point A once more.

- Blatant double standards. You claim that personality doesn't matter to you nor engineers and then suggest that Rosberg's lack of titles (which you repeat for the sake of hyping your favourite driver and belittling the other ) can be mended with his attitude change (perhaps) and/or is the effect of attitude/character. Quotes above are every straightforward, you wrote it yourself you liar. Fact not opinion and appropriate when you accuse someone of making up, you can't do that.
- " He could be the biggest anus on the planet, it does not circumvent point A." You said if he were he wouldn't be driving Mercedes and McL so which one is it?

"Lewis Hamilton asks Mercedes not to impose team orders". http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/ ... eam-orders

Like in Monaco? The fact is that he was not strongly against team orders but very much in favour of them when he was benefiting from them and it was one of two reasons that made Monaco win possible. So it's the case of saying something and doing the opposite, like here :

"Max Verstappen: Lewis Hamilton a hypocrite over safety"http://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id/166 ... ite-safety "In the media he's saying he doesn't care, but when he talks to his team it's different," Verstappen is quoted as saying by the BBC. "I had an incident in the drivers' briefing in Baku saying the pit entry was quite tricky, and he's like: 'Oh, you shouldn't bother about it.'

"But then Nico [Rosberg] jumped in and said: 'Wait, Lewis, you just said you were [scared] when you were entering the pit lane'. So what is this approach?' Maybe he wants to be cool."

How about this for character description.

[Phil]

With Hamilton, as much as I am a fan of him and admire him for his driving skill, I sense that this is one aspect where he is rather limited and I am unsure how close he is to his own team of engineers and the racing staff.

Talking to people I know who work at the factory (or who have relatives who do) he's a nice bloke at the get togethers. For example, a friend's sister is a cleaner (I think) and apparently he chatted as happily to her as anyone. No obvious "I'm a star" attitude.

That's good to hear. Unfortunately I can't find the article I read on his time at McLaren. Regardless, I think it's clear that Hamilton has evolved quite a bit as a person since then. I've just always respected the work ethos of Schumacher (and Vettel seems very similar too, but also Rosberg to a less obvious degree) who seem very methodical in how they (seem to) approach the sport and races. Perhaps racers like Schumacher made their team feel more part and central of the success, given the time he spent with them? For instance, I've wondered why at times it seems that Lewis spends less time participating in testing. Sure, as the natural racer he is, he can get away with it, without having a big impact on how he performs on track. But maybe, a more involved driver who spends more time with the actual staff, just gets more out of them?

A bit like - within any job, you can be the most brilliant mind on the job and that might net you your position, but if you're not liked as a person, even that has limits too.

What I have noticed though is that, especially this year, but also last year, i.e. Monaco, he does make every effort to 'stand by his team', thanking them, and maintaining that you win and lose as a team. Even this year, during interviews, during troubled weekend, he has made every effort to come across as standing behind his team no matter what. So maybe my thought process is a bit unjustified...

[skoop]

I read in an article (think it was from AMuS) that Hamilton stayed up the night before the race to study racing lines for making his tires last.
In my opinion most of the stuff you can read about work ethics is on the one hand media bla bla and on the other hand image building.

[lebesset]

team orders in monaco ???
when you are taking away any chance of a win for the team by holding up your team mate who is 2 seconds faster ?
what's that to do with team orders ...any driver in any team would have the same instruction ...it's technical , not preference

incidentally , as he keeps showing , rosberg is given to mistakes when pressured and his reaction is to crash into his opponent ...it may be that the steward keep letting him off because it is blue on blue but he has to go , maybe williams would like him

replacement ? a driver who has improved greatly with experience and would fit with hamilton ....perez ...... a bit like ferrari 's replacement ....grosjean

[Gerhardsa]

And then you get reports from Laude like this
http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hamil ... da-795726/

Don't really know what to make of the article.
On one hand, one can clearly say that Merc is all about the team (not Hamilton or Rosberg) if you look at things like Monaco driver position swop, but then you get a stupid article like this.

Laude never had any filters when it came to speaking his mind, but he is clearly trying to shine a bad light on Hamilton. (and NO...im not a Hamilton fanboy)

I could personally not give a rats backside if he levelled the entire motorhome. Im sure plenty of the best, most ruthless sportsman in the world sometimes lose their 1@#$ at some point out of anger.

Makes me wonder what is going on at Merc some days. Cant be an easy pairing to manage, but then articles like this one doesn't help either, does it?
Sorry if its off topic. I felt it had to do with the team and what is going on there

[Phil]

I think part of the issue of that article (the motorsport.com one) is that it's effectively a 'translated' article. I just read the piece on AMuS and it doesn't come across as Lauda trying to shine a bad light on Hamilton. It also takes note, that he revealed that bit about the destroyed room before the crash in Austria. He also goes on to explain why Lewis said things were okay between him and Rosberg in an effort to get a bit of piece from the press.

Here's the AMuS article (for those that can understand German):
http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/form ... 77669.html