Hamilton to leave for Mercedes 2013

[godlameroso]

Hamilton is staying put, at least for one more year. It doesn't make sense for him to leave, aside from Spa Germany and Valencia how many DNF's has Hamilton had this year? Hamilton will get more wins this year, and if he bags another title can't no one be mad at him. There's less than 50pts covering the top 5 drivers, and another potential 200pts to play for not to mention McLaren, Lotus, Ferrari, and Red Bull are all fighting for wins and taking points off each other.

[internetf1fan]

Hamilton is staying put, at least for one more year. It doesn't make sense for him to leave, aside from Spa Germany and Valencia how many DNF's has Hamilton had this year? Hamilton will get more wins this year, and if he bags another title can't no one be mad at him. There's less than 50pts covering the top 5 drivers, and another potential 200pts to play for not to mention McLaren, Lotus, Ferrari, and Red Bull are all fighting for wins and taking points off each other.

McLaren has lost Hamilton a lot of points this year. They will probably lose him more as the year progresses. That's won't help his championship race.


"McLaren, Lotus, Ferrari, and Red Bull are all fighting for wins and taking points off each other."

Ferrai and Red Bull both have their preferred drivers. It's McLaren who's damaging themselves by allowing the drivers to take points away from each other. Again, lets look at 2008, the first time when McLaren decided to focus on one driver from the start of the season. What did they get? That's right their first WDC is the decade. Can't believe how bad McLaren is treating Hamilton.

[internetf1fan]

The silly thing about your comment is that KERS was also in the regulations for all the teams including Ferrari yet they didn't use it either. Sometiems a Gentelmen's agreement is exactly that.

And that was my point. If Ferrari and others were happy to hamper their performance, let them. If they continued not using KERS then McLaren would be in an advantage, Even if Ferrari decided to use KERS, the McLaren package was better. By agreeing to that stupid gentlemens agreement, McLaren didn't get anything when they could have contented for both championships. That's what I mean by Whitmarsh not having any balls.

[siskue2005]

an idea camne to me....perhaps its Roseberg who is moving to either Mclaren or Ferrari
so that fascilitates Lewis' move to Merc??

[turbof1]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/102272

I don't know but if he wants a winning car it's certainly not at Mercedes. He knows that very well.

I think that once twitter gate has been putted away, relationships at mclaren will get back better and he'll stay there.

[Morteza]

I always thought of Hamilton's next team, and Mercedes seemed very plausible. I knew if Schumacher left the team, they would bring a top driver. I wanted it to be Hamilton. If Schumacher leaves F1 next season,I'd like to see Lewis in his seat. But the thing is that none can guarantee that Mercedes will be competitive next season. It makes it a big risk for Hamilton whose current team is one the best top teams out there (if not the best). I don't see any motivation on Hamilton's side to move to Mercedes. Mercedes is an inferior team compared to McLaren. No doubt about it. If Schumacher wants to leave Mercedes, is it because their being incapable? If so, wouldn't Hamilton's decision to join Mercedes be a big mistake? I see no reason why Schumacher would leave Mercedes if they are competitive next season. Just my 2 cent. I Can be wrong altogether, you know

[turbof1]

quoted from the topic "silly season 2012/2013:

Ineresting article on skysports website by Ted Kravitz :
http://www1.skysports.com/formula-1/new ... t-McLaren-

I think that is the real reason behind it. What I believe is that Lewis himself actually never sat down personally to negotiate a new contract, his management XIX Company really is doing that. We should not forget that company is from outside the F1. Most drivers have management who have experience and/or ties with F1, and within that last group of management, there is more of a "gentlemen protocol" where less extreme bluffs, like the one XIX is doing right now, are being played. Ted also mentions the bluff is badly played out, and I can follow that due the lack of knowledge XIX actually has from F1.

[scuderiafan]

It doesn't make sense for Hamilton to leave McLaren. McLaren is a much better team than Mercedes and it would take a lot of screwing up from McLaren to lose their prodigy racer. However, Lewis still shows flashes of his young and emotional side, a la the whole Twittergate deal last weekend, so if he did sign for Mercedes I wouldn't be surprised.

[Stradivarius]

The silly thing about your comment is that KERS was also in the regulations for all the teams including Ferrari yet they didn't use it either. Sometiems a Gentelmen's agreement is exactly that.

And that was my point. If Ferrari and others were happy to hamper their performance, let them. If they continued not using KERS then McLaren would be in an advantage, Even if Ferrari decided to use KERS, the McLaren package was better. By agreeing to that stupid gentlemens agreement, McLaren didn't get anything when they could have contented for both championships. That's what I mean by Whitmarsh not having any balls.

This is not even close to the advantage Ferrari gave away in front of the 2006-season, when they agreed to limit their testing. While McLaren had spent their money on their technology center, Ferrari had invested in their own test track, right outside the factory and were thereby able to test at a much lower cost. Testing the car on track is definitely the most efficient way of developing the car and Ferrari built their success on this philosophy. In 2006 they then agreed to eliminate this advantage through a similar gentlemen's agreement. When they lost the title in the last two races, it was all down to reliability, which can be directly attributed to limited testing. A team that tests regularly as Ferrari used to do, is much less likely to experience reliability problems during the race weekend, simply because the problems will be discovered on the test track.

In 2005 all the teams except Ferrari agreed to limit their testing. Unfortunately for Ferrari, the new tyre rules meant the development was all about tyres and Ferrari was the only team testing for Bridgestone. So even though Ferrari loged 70 days of testing, while the other teams on Michelins did 30 days each that season, Bridgestone came out with only 1/3 of the mileage that Michelin achieved.

But we digress

When it comes to Hamilton, I think he is better of at McLaren. They have a faster car, a more reliable car, and a larger budget than Mercedes. I also think it strang if Schumacher chooses to retire now. He is currently performing better than ever since his comeback and would actually say that he has performed way better than Rosberg this year. Additionally, Mercedes has shown promising signs of progress. Although, their car is no longer as fast as at the beginning of the season, and their reliablity has been terrible all year, I think the team is beginning to get everything in place to start fighting for race wins soon.

[f1316]

What makes the least sense about any of this is that Schumacher would be out of F1 completely.

But that's where the whole rumour started and seemingly from someone in the know: Bernie Ecclestone said what makes him the most sad is that MSC will leave without winning again. That means no swtiching teams, no staying with Merc, just retiring again.

The reason it makes no sense to me is that now, more than ever, he's showing that he's more than good enough to be part of the field. With his marquee name added to that, why would he leave now? He's regularly faster than Rosberg who we know can win races in the right car and has been genuinely quick throughout his F1 tenure, so the argument that he's too old just doesn't hold water.

My ideal scenario is a final, fairwell year at Ferrari. The theory is that Vettel's got some kind of pre-contract for 2014, so a one year filler would suit both parties, and Schumacher may well have a chance of going out with at least one win.

Still, my gut says that if Bernie thinks he's retiring, he is.

[SeijaKessen]

Here's a suggestion: watch the 2012 season again, from day one .

Maldonaldo not good in races? Remind me who's won a race again? Oh dear. His pace is not the problem, his race craft and his mindset is. The guy is bloody fast and doesn't know how to utilise his speed - week in week out. Whilst Senna is just consistently slow.

In addition, I find that most inquisitive minds find it somewhat peculiar that a team that hadn't won in quite sometime, suddenly has everything down when said team's, team principal happens to turn 70 years old. Something about that tire compound.

ag no man, not match fixing in F1 as well...surely not

Well, I wouldn't say it is something akin to Briatore/Piquet Jr. at Renault.

All it would really take is making a subtle adjustment to the tire compound that could give one team enough of an advantage in a race.

Why, haven't you noticed how the tire wear seems to have improved ever so slightly since the early part of the season...? Were you to ask Pirelli about that, they'd likely tell you nothing has changed. The optimal operating window for the tires is still rubbish in my opinion, but it's definitely rather more predictable now as opposed to say Malaysia.

[raymondu999]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bllLL-2Dmhc[/youtube]

[SeijaKessen]

Perhaps as another poster mentioned, Schumacher may leave Mercedes to aid Ferrari in Development as well as giving Perez another year to further mature.

Of all the potential on paper moves, Schumacher going to Ferrari makes the most sense to me.

He's forever going to be linked with Ferrari because it was the team he had the greatest impact on, and the most success with. It'd be a win-win situation for Ferrari in 2013 since they would now have a great 2nd driver, and in having that it would allow them to seriously contend for the constructor's title, which is not going to happen with Massa there IMO.

[Lorenzo_Bandini]

Indeed. A move to Ferrari for Schumacher will be perfect for both. If i, and some others people around forums had thinking about this move, i don't know why Di Montezemolo or Schumacher not. Perhaps it's too much but i starting to think Schumacher think if he was in the car instead of Massa he will do a much better job.

And i think that a lot of people would love to see Schumacher in the Ferrari again, with his old enemy Alonso. Perhaps one of the better driver duo right now.

Anyway, back to the topic, i don't know how Hamilton is going to sign with Mercedes. I even think Williams and Sauber are better opportunities.

It's sad and perhaps too harsh but for me Mercedes is synonym of fail. It's like the China GP was three years ago.

[wunderkind]

Perhaps as another poster mentioned, Schumacher may leave Mercedes to aid Ferrari in Development as well as giving Perez another year to further mature.

Of all the potential on paper moves, Schumacher going to Ferrari makes the most sense to me.

He's forever going to be linked with Ferrari because it was the team he had the greatest impact on, and the most success with. It'd be a win-win situation for Ferrari in 2013 since they would now have a great 2nd driver, and in having that it would allow them to seriously contend for the constructor's title, which is not going to happen with Massa there IMO.

I personally think the possibility of Schumacher returning to Ferrari is zero. He, along with Todt, and to a lesser extent, Brawn were made to leave the team by di Montezemolo at that time.

I believe the Ferrari team will become even more Alonso-centric and the other driver will be there to play a supporting role only. With restricted testing nowadays, a driver like Alonso can probably do most of the pre-season testing with the teammate and the reserve driver doing only the minor stuffs.