Current Sir Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton MBE

A place to put all the posts from all the other threads primarily but love him or hate him, and even for the indifferent amongst us this is the place to discuss the marmite that is Lewis Hamilton, to learn a thing or two about his rise, talk about those controversial, genius or mad moments and something that i am bemused by, the recent articles that suggest something quite different to my perception of what's going on. Any experiences of meeting LH?

Brundle had to write a Lewis Hamilton article recently and in my tweets (which were probably ignored) I asked him to talk about LH the driver not LH the personality. It seems that you can't have one without the other.

So as a starter for ten, here is a fairly recent LH article. Posts should not be limited to this link but it can get some discussion going. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/formula_one/13755883.stm

The only banned topic as it is clearly ridiculous involves these four things "Glock" "2008" "Brazil" "conspiracy"

 

[Boyle]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepag...is-Hamilton-to-quit-McLaren-for-Mercedes.html

The sun has some money figures.
Rejected £36 mil deal
Taken £45 mil deal
With bonuses for championships etc that would grow to £60 mil
AND he is allowed £40 mil of personal sponsorship taking the total to a cool £100 million.

Ka..Ching.

edit : oh yeh and some bloke called schumacher has quit

I would reject anything that paper prints, so I wouldn't exactly trust those figures.

Hamilton has left due to a chasm appearing between him and the team's leadership, mainly Whitmarsh, but we won't ever know how bad the relationship deteriorated. The writing was on the wall when he tweeted that technical info, it is almost as though he did it deliberately to force a move. It is not about making an extra 9 million quid for him (although his agents probably disagree!)

 

[Greenlantern101]

Boyle What your saying 'the sun' isn't reliable .... thats where I get all my facts and moral guidance.

 

[Dizzi]

My initial thought was surprise at the move but the pairing of Ross Brawn and Lewis is very tantalising. I think someone's already said it but Ross (in my personal opinion) is a far better team leader than Whitmarsh & he knows how to get the best out of his drivers. With the big rule changes for 2014 I don't think joining a team with Brawn in is such a big risk.
With a 3 year deal it gives Lewis time to prove himself in another team. I 'm looking forward to seeing what he can do in the "midfield" considering he dragged that awful McLaren onto podiums in 2009. it may be more satisfying to make good a middling car than to have hopes dashed by having a very good car & the team letting you down as McLaren have done so much this year.
I suspect the McLaren 'equal driver' policy this year has been rather Orwellian, Brawn has proved in 2009 he really does equal drivers.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Whitmarsh seems to have gotten the best out of Jenson, I think it is a matter of whether you like a person or you don't any manager will tell you that....

And as for the equal driver bit you mentioned that has got to be a joke surely were any of Schumacher's team mates treated equally?

And what about Rubens blah blah blah outburst I'm not saying that Jenson and Rubens were not treated equally but I'm bloody sure that Rubens would disagree....

 

[Il_leone]

Mephistopheles I always thought Rubens was feeble in the heat of the battle when things did not go his way

As for Hamilton this is a big risk and could be a career breaker from defining to be an all time great

Hamilton like Vettel are graduates/ proteges of young driver programmes so this is a test to see whether he has genuine leadership qualities to make a team look better than it should

He is the only one of the main contenders to move which means it may handicap him whilst he takes time to settle

Be interesting to see if there is any clause in his current contract to stop him doing early development work for Mercedes after the season ends

 

[Lewywo4]

I'm very disappointed by Lewis's decision to join Mercedes, and I'll bet that the champagne is flowing at the Alonso residence today, especially since a major threat for Fernando from securing a 2013 title, will possibly not be competing at the sharp end of the grid next season. Fernando has a realistic chance by the end of the 2013 season, to become a 4X WDC.

 

[Mephistopheles]

It was his decision so I guess we must respect it, being a great driver does not automatically mean greatness, just take a glance at Alesi's career his move to Ferrari spelt curtains for him.....

 

[Lewywo4]

It was his decision so I guess we must respect it, being a great driver does not automatically mean greatness, just take a glance at Alesi's career his move to Ferrari spelt curtains for him.....

Some can only wish, but Jean Alesi is surely not a Lewis Hamilton.

Fernando's move from Mclaren to Renault, surely didn't seem to hurt him with Ferrari.

 

[Mephistopheles]

I would disagree Jean Alesi was a very very talented driver but he made the wrong choice at the wrong time, he should have gone to Williams, but the lure of Ferrari clouded his judgement and as they say hindsight is 20-20...

 

[riskitall]

so this is what ross brawn has recently said about lewis and what he wants.

"There isn't a number one status," he said. "To be clear, Lewis never mentioned that in all the discussions we had with him.
"He wanted to make sure that he had parity, that there was equality in what was done, but he never ever asked for number one status.

notice how lewis said he wanted to be sure that there was EQUALITY in what was done.
i feel that under whitmarsh he didnt feel that equality.he felt that button was getting more from the team than he was.
remember last season everyone saying button was the new team leader,he had everyone on his side.
now ppl are talking like that never happened.

anyway,good luck to lewis and jenson.tho i feel in a tight season,jenson doesnt have the ability to win the championship.
mainly because of his poor qualifying performances in a tight season.

 

[KekeTheKing]

Simpler times for Mr Hamilton.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Some poor photoshoppery from the interwebz.

 

[Hamberg]

No stupid beard or earrings and his cap isn't resting on his head. Poor effort.

 

[F1ang-o]

I'm sure he will have a beaming smile too....

 

[Viscount]

During an interview with Ross Brawn on the Sky Sports F1 Show, while discussing Lewis Hamilton's move to Mercedes, Brawn said something I found rather interesting. I’ve highlighted the parts in bold that I felt stood out to me.

Q (Ted Kravitz): "Did it come as a surprise to you because you might have considered that he's a McLaren lifer and might never have left McLaren?"

Ross Brawn: "You never know until you ask. McLaren is a very professional high-level team but it's kind of complete and I think the opportunity for Lewis to join a team that's still growing and still to achieve its ambitions was an added element. But there is still the driver saying, “Yeah I know you're doing all that but trust me, this is the bit that's really hurting me and this is the bit you need to fix. Maybe I don't know what the solution is but don't spread your efforts over everything because if you can focus on this and improve this then i'm gonna go faster.”and that's a vital part of the process."

Brawn also later went on to say: "Everything is focused on Lewis being a racing driver, being part of the team here, being part of the engineering team and of course there is other considerations but they're secondary."

Now I could just be reading too much into it, but firstly, I'm very curious as to what area Hamilton feels is preventing him from being the best driver he could be. Secondly, perhaps McLaren weren't willing or simply just weren't able to fix the area of Lewis' driving that he felt needed addressing and so could be part of the reason why he left, to seek help elsewhere. Finally, though Mercedes have unequivocally stated that both drivers have equal status, it sounds to me like Lewis may have a voice in their car design.

 

[The Artist.....]

Whilst this isn't the same situation, Hamilton joining Mercedes reminds me of Damon Hill moving to arrows back in 1997... We had hill talking about the facilities at leafield, the change in regs (well actually, the move from monopolistic tyres to a tyre war)... However, Mercedes at least have some recent pedigree, so the comparison is not wholly accurate....
http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns00786.html

 

[Hamberg]

I picked up on that too Viscount and what struck me is that Hamilton clearly is somebody that it able to contribute to development.

 

[The Pits]

I think, most importantly, he is a proven winner, and he is ****ing quick!

 

[Quintessentially]

Laura has changed his tune. I wonder how much Mercedes are paying him.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/19776917

 

[Jen]

He who pays the piper, calls the tune. More people should remember that.