Originally Posted by Assa2:
“Huge gamble by LH. IMO he's moving for 2 reasons. Primarily for the undisputed No. 1 position (although I think he'll find Rosberg quite competative) and secondarily for the money (I think he was offended when Mclaren offered him a new contract with a huge pay cut initially).
He won't win any more DCs with Mercedes than he would have with Mclaren and as a long term prospect, Mclaren are a much safer bet in terms of competativeness. I can see this back-firing in a big way. JB won't be too displeased though as he'll be the undisputed No. 1 at Mclaren going into next season with potentially the best car. It will be very interesting to see how much of Perez's podiums this season have been down to him, how much have been the tyre stratgey and how much the car. He'll be quick I'm sure but I don't expect him to beat JB next season.”
I wonder what Hamilton is getting payed compared to Button?
I think, maybe, Button cut his deal before the credit crunch hit F1 so maybe Hamilton resents that Button is getting paid more?
About the only good thing going for Merc' is that Ross Brawn is there.
Maybe Hamilton feels like he's lost out as a result of poor race strategy by McLaren in the past so he likes the idea of having a slippery team boss who comes up with clever ideas?
I'm guessing that a lot of the reason for the delay is down to Merc' haggling over the concorde agreement.
I mean, how many major manufacturers have been in F1 but left again in the last few years?
Hamilton won't want to be in a Merc' team that's underfunded so they'll have had had to get their budget, including the TV cash etc, sorted before Hamilton agrees to sign.
I can see next year being a repeat of 2011 for Hamilton at Merc' unless Brawn pulls it out of the bag and creates a monster car.
Still, I guess a poor showing next year can be written off as "getting to know the team" so, in theory, he'll be fully up to speed in 2014.
I still wonder how protected Lewis is at McLaren too.
Some of his radio messages still betray a certain naivety and if he's got people helping him make choices at McLaren it might be a bit of a shock for him to go out into the big wide world where he'll be expected to make a lot of the hard choices for himself.