Why lewis hamilton left mclaren

Heavens, this year he has intermittently been hopelessly sullen and self-pitying. Yet McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh, a nice man with a chummy style of driver management, exercised no governance over his man. No fine. No serious admonishment. Perhaps he feared pushing Hamilton away amid delicate contract talks. Had I been his manager then I think I would have said 'let's do a short-term deal at McLaren, for one or two years, and let's see what is out there and see who is moving'.

He has taken a gamble. If Mercedes can harness that speed and give him the car, he will drag another quarter of a second per lap out of it somewhere and I think he'll do a great job. Time will tell. I wasn't sure Jenson Button was right to go to McLaren but he was. His departure has allowed McLaren to link up with the world's richest man, Carlos Slim, whose companies back Hamilton's replacement, Sergio Perez. But with only one in five years at McLaren - likely to be six - and that back in , he must now feel a change is required.

And it is easy for a lean couple of years to develop into something longer. He never won another race. Lewis has got a tough task ahead of him at Mercedes. Perhaps he thinks that if it fails he will at least have the consolation of earning loads more money and being a bigger star, thanks to his hustling management that will sell his image here, there and everywhere.

That might make him an international celebrity on a bigger scale than he is, but it will not make him a racing legend. Yeah for me it has never really been about one team for life, and I have just always naturally gravitated towards the one individual that gets to take all that has gone into the project after all the money and resources have gone into it, and run with it.

Carlos Medrano carlosmedrano 26th January , That guy got a dominant car for four years with a slow teammate. And now that he has to fight for points his skills are showing.

And alonso ended up in slow cars despite being one of the quickest guys. Esploratore esploratore 26th January , Absolutely, alonso proved to be superior to vettel and uninformed viewers will think the opposite cause 4 vs 2 titles. S 27th January , Chileshe Mwansa 26th January , People always forget Formula 1 is two competitions: The drivers on the circuit and the engineers in the factories. To ask that the engineers not try to win their competition so that we can have a better show in the drivers competition is not really fair to the engineers who make up the bulk of the numbers in the teams.

In f1 the car has always been the most important thing. Driver make a difference when the cars are close in speed or between teammates. Darryl mars 10th April , S 26th January , NoName noname 26th January , Mclaren 26th January , S did you watch the season? Mclaren was completely incompetent with a horrible pit crew and horrible reliability. Z 26th January , Im not a hamilton fan, apart from his BLM stance which i as a white male support as an ally to people of colour, but i believe that Mercedes would have wanted the best driver in their car, and would have signed Hamilton eventually.

Though, say if they poached Vettel for the or season, imagine Vettel now being a 10 times world champion! Fantomius liko41 26th January , So what? Everybody knows no driver can turn a crappy car into a championship contender, but a world class pilot can actually make a HUGE difference in close fights.

Just take season as an example. A 26th January , RB13 26th January , Foggy 26th January , BasCB bascb 26th January , Hm, actually, we cannot really say so for sure at all. With Hamilton there, who knows how the team would have developed in the last 8 seasons. I do agree that the change helped Hamilton further develop himself. And McLaren was clearly on a downwards trajectory in that it is only now starting to bend upwards.

All of that makes it feel unlikely that Hamilton would have been able to fight for wins regularly and have had many chances at the championship in those years. Then again, had Hamilton stayed on, would more sponsors have stayed on? How would the situations with the team leadership have developed. And surely they would not have found themselves in the same situation with Honda they found themselves in with Alonso constantly bashing the engine? McLaren shoukd have won the first seven of with ease but they kept shooting themselves in the foot.

But whatever, so you are saying that Hamilton is wrong, and that had he stayed on the team would have had championship success in the period since? I guess that shows you as an example of what people above mention about certain fans?

I say that the things going wrong, making errors in procedure as well as wrong paths in development and being unable to correct them, partly due to overestimating your skill at developing them in the first place are exactly what shows that they WERE in on a downward trend. But I do not think it would have miraculously turned them into a title contender for Well, first of all, they went from being more or less the second favourite to win the title next to Ferrari in the years from , to being more in a position where Ferrari were in until 2 years back, where they might win it, but rather unlikely behind Red Bull and you forgot that in they only finished as 3rd in the championship behind RBR and Ferrari.

Before dropping down to 5th in The car was actually faster than Red Bull, but it broke down a lot and pit and strategy errors killed whatever was left. It only started going downwards from onwards. And in a way it presented a bit of a false dawn. The team had been on a downward trajectory as a whole though, as also described in the article davewillisporter points to thanks, solid read the team had had issues that set them on a path that ultimately could not work in the long term because they were too full of themselves.

Also one of the points that make Red Bull achieve results even when they might not have the best car, or the most reliable one, they often were able to get their strategy right, avoid mistakes in the pitlane etc. Dave davewillisporter 26th January , Very inciteful. They believed they knew best.

It is unlikely that a driver like Lewis was at the time would have changed this mentality as it only really changed when Zak took over and more again when Seidl came in.

Hughes makes the point that McLaren had a paternalistic attitude towards their young protege. Read the article, it highlights both your points. He forced the low speed turn in development direction. The above is credited to one James Allison, the person who revealed this info. McLarens downfall was a lot to do with power struggles in management. There were and still are ongoing restructuring and management changes at McLaren. Those changes and instability as well as the causes for stakeholders wanting Dennis out are the reasons why Hamilton wanted out of McLaren.

And then given the options he had, he made an excellent decision going to Mercedes. As for whether McLaren were on a downfall before or after , I kinda agree with both of you. In some ways they were improving up to They went from being at the back of the front runners to being the fastest car, they were also improving their WDC and WCC position up to but not including they were getting more comfortable 2nds. These are the reasons why the stakeholders wanted Dennis out, and also contributing factors as to why Hamilton wanted out.

So of course, everyone there was starting to perform horribly. They had unrealistic demands, and projected their horrible work environment onto Honda. A M amam 26th January , Fast in qualifying but with great dips in race pace and poor reliability. RB was the better overall car. Can only imagine what it looked like on the executive car spot when Brawn rocked up on day one after Mercedes took over.

Jere jerejj 26th January , Possible never at any point in the last seven years, unless Rosberg would still have left after winning either a single WDC or more. I would estimate that Rosberg would probably have had more championships to his name by jerejj. But off course we do not know that the team would have had the staying power it showed it had with that very high level team of drivers they had with Rosberg and Hamilton. Regardless, there is simply no way if Lewis approached them, they would not have signed him.

Not with Mercedes detailed knowledge of his obvious skills as an engine supplier to McLaren and having sponsored his pre-F1 career. No way. If Button could see that you can bet the Mercedes engineers in the back of the McLaren garage could too.

Again, ifs and buts but Lewis was always considered a top talent by Mercedes, certainly far better than their second choice Hulk. Singapore sealed the deal in much the same way as Sakhir did for Perez. Red Andy red-andy 26th January , After all, they have not replaced Bottas even though better drivers have been available. Top teams go for top drivers.

It would have been Rosberg Hulkenberg, that was their back up choice. That combination would, if extended likely have lost a WCC for them at some point.

Therefore, the management would probably take into serious consideration hiring someone better. Wayne 26th January , Mercedece together with lewis and the engineers have developed the best car on the grid. There is no denying that. Because a few times now many other people in the team have stated that Lewis is always pushing in the development side.

In addition to 9 podium finishes in a row and 4 joint victories, he also bagged the maximum number of points in his first season. Hamilton earned the first chequered flag at the Canadian Grand Prix. It was his sixth Grand Prix in his debut season; however, this was just the start. His rivalry with teammate Alonso was extremely tense and tough. The Britton, in his second season, claimed 5 titles and 10 podium finishes. A contract renewal shackled Lewis Hamilton to the Woking-based outfit till However, unlike the and seasons, his season kicked off on the wrong foot.

For the first time in his career, it seemed like Lady Luck was not on his side; for he was seen struggling for a mere podium finish.