Will McLaren support Lewis now?

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Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1

If Hamilton said he was going to win the title with Mercedes next year no doubt he'd be called "arrogant" :rolleyes:

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Anyone would be called arrogant for an outright "I'm gonna win ." , Arrows .

How about an "I can't wait to get a hold of that car . They are saying it's developing nicely ."

Or perhaps a "Why not ?" , when asked if he can win next year .

How about a "Now that they know I'm on board , they are working to try to make it suit my style , and that should help a lot when I get in the car and start working on a suitable set-up ."



I get what he is trying to say , that it will be tough for him next year , in a new team , with a car designed with less of his style imposed upon it .
The way he said it , though , could be easily mis-interpretted , and no driver can afford to rock the boat before he boards it , not even Lewis .

He's on the outside now , but he's been in the number one("We're racing Fernando.") position as well .

Many slips like this and Nico will have the smiley side of the garage .

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Originally Posted by jens

I think you have 2001 in mind. :) Yes, that was a pretty terrible season for Mika, including the legendary last-lap retirement in Spain...


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That was a terrible season for Mclaren in many ways. Mika was poor form most of the races, Mclaren had many retirements from mechanical issues and they were beggining to fall way behind Ferrari on pass and were even past by Williams.

That Mika retirement in Spain was unreal. Made worse by the fact Ferrari had major issues in Schumachers car.

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Originally Posted by aki13

That Mika retirement in Spain was unreal. Made worse by the fact Ferrari had major issues in Schumachers car.

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Yes. The worst end to a Grand Prix I have watched. Only the end of the 1997 Hungarian Grand Prix is equally horrible.

It's silly to think that McLaren would sabotage Hamilton just because he's leaving next year... that they would throw a WDC for spite... I think the show just got too deep inside some people's head. This is not a telenovela :laugh:

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Originally Posted by Big Ben

It's silly to think that McLaren would sabotage Hamilton just because he's leaving next year...

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Absolutely. McLaren is fighting for P2 in the WCC and I am sure they are very interested in the extra money that would come with a higher WCC position. Especially as they are likely to lose sponsors going by recent developments.

As for any kind of sabotage theories. All I can tell to people is to think about the following: after you have spent many days, weeks, even months building a house, suffered from exhaustion and overworking, would you destroy it after completing it? Probably not, because that would be pure insanity considering the effort you have put in to complete the task.

Same applies to F1 teams. It is unimaginable, how much effort, time and money is invested to design, build and develop those cars to be fast and as competitive as possible. And to undo the whole work and effort by sabotaging is just absolutely unthinkable. You have to think from their perspective. It doesn't make any sense after you have spent the whole year working hard to make the car competitive. You wouldn't destroy your own professional work, would you? This applies to all those hundreds of employees in the team.

I agree with Jens.

No reason they shouldn't go all out to finish as high in the WCC as possible, after that extra money increases their chances of being able to design a better car next season.

Reason Button was way behind Hamilton, is because he is not as fast when Lewis is at his best. The team know that and Jenson nows that, but they will push hard to design a car for next season which will give Button & Perez there best chance, while Lewis will start the challenge of bringing Mercedes to the front.

Lets hope both happen and we see a good season in 2013

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Originally Posted by henners88

McLaren don't need to support Lewis for any meaningful gain this season now and its basically a cruise and collect situation. I think his performance in Abu Dhabi must have been tough for McLaren to watch. Jenson struggling with no real explanation as to why he lacked pace and Lewis storming at the front only to be let down by unreliability. Watching Perez make a silly error must have been concerning too. There's no doubt Lewis will leave a void at McLaren in the immediate future and I have no doubt Lewis is looking forward to next season more than the team.

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Yeah, and Lewis has really come alive this season. He has had incredibly bad luck and, in my opinion, he would have been WDC this year were it not for McLaren errors. I can see next season being a really tough one for McLaren but we may be pleasantly surprised. I really don't understand their decision to sign Perez. Hulk or DiResta, either, would have been a much better choice.

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Originally Posted by The Black Knight

He has had incredibly bad luck and, in my opinion, he would have been WDC this year were it not for McLaren errors.

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Very likely, but you take the good and the bad - he benefited from the pace McLaren had in some races and in the same time suffered from their problems.

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Originally Posted by henners88

It sounds like you think he should just smile and accept his team haven't delivered. The problem Lewis has is he has experienced just how fast the car can be, but has seen that other teams have been more consistent. These guys are racing to win and Hamilton has had arguably one of his best seasons performance wise, only to lose out greatly through unreliability and team cock ups. The moment Lewis hints at being slightly frustrated, he's lynched by the fans of rival teams and drivers. Its a situation where he can do very little but hide his true feelings. He walked away from his stricken car in the race on Sunday smiling and to me that suggested he has just come to accept his time with the team ending can't come soon enough. I don't think he feels anger towards the team but you can't blame him for wanting a new challenge elsewhere. Its been a poor year for McLaren. I think 2012 for Lewis will be remembered for him doing everything right but lacking with the vital package.

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Actually, I've looked back recently at his 07 and 08 seasons and he has made less mistakes this year than those years. This has actually been his best season to date from a driving perspective, it's just that McLaren haven't delivered him the package. Having pace in the odd race here and there is no good if you have multiple bad pit stops, two races with suspension issues, under fueled in qualifying and 5 DNF's which were out of your control. It's just a shame the results don't reflect the huge effort he has put in for himself and the team.

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Originally Posted by henners88

It sounds like you think he should just smile and accept his team haven't delivered.

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No. I just think that McLaren gave him a car, which allowed him to shine. But not to win - and in this they have truly failed. But in the same time Mercedes gave Michael a car which allowed him neither to win, nor even to shine - except in Monaco.

Mac has given a car to Lewis that suits him down to the ground .
They've done a great job for Lewis in that respect .

But , on the other side of the garage , Button has struggled all year long .
When Lewis lost it and tweeted telemetry , it showed he wasn't expecting to have lost to his team-mate .
He knows the car suits him and doesn't suit Jensen .

His comments that had him discounting next year as a write-off seem to point not to the fact Button can't drive around a good car's problems , but rather that it's only a good car for Lewis , himself .

That's crazy talk Bags :laugh:

http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/pc/L...bWI7p1Rp_l.jpg

It's not just Vettel that can do the finger :laugh:

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Originally Posted by henners88

PS: Trying to get my head around it, are you hinting that Lewis is making a mistake going to Mercedes based on the cars performance this year?

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I think that you may soon curse the day he left McLaren.

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Originally Posted by henners88

I am well aware that McLaren are a team very capable of winning races and they will continue to win races once Lewis has moved on. I'm not expecting Lewis to win the Championship next year and if he isn't in the running the following year I will not be surprised. Rome wasn't built in a day and we all know lewis is taking a gamble with his move. A driver needs to feel comfortable within a team as well as be able to win for the perfect balance and that is evidently lacking at McLaren. For that reason alone I will not be cursing the day he left McLaren.

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I can't see McLaren winning a championship anytime soon. They are up and down more times than a whores knickers. Whether it be reliability, bad strategy (a department they have always been lacking really), an inconsistent car, a dud car, bad pit stops or whatever, there is always something. No use in winning 5 races a year if you can never win a championship.

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Originally Posted by Bagwan

Mac has given a car to Lewis that suits him down to the ground .
They've done a great job for Lewis in that respect .

But , on the other side of the garage , Button has struggled all year long .
When Lewis lost it and tweeted telemetry , it showed he wasn't expecting to have lost to his team-mate .
He knows the car suits him and doesn't suit Jensen .

His comments that had him discounting next year as a write-off seem to point not to the fact Button can't drive around a good car's problems , but rather that it's only a good car for Lewis , himself .

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Are you serious?
Mabe it's more about the tires. Remember the year with Brawn when he was the clear number 1, he struggle on many gp to heat the tires.
Remember his victories with huge gamble on srategy because he was awful on the intermediate tires.
Button the tire master is just a myth. Lewis maybe struggled on some occasions because he was attacking too much too fight with faster cars but he never struggled as much as Button to be on many occasions the slowest guy on certain tires like the intermediate tires where you need to keep them warn.
Lewis problem was sometimes to overcook them but it's easier to deal with that by pushing less than to don't know how to operate with some kind of tires.

Button is known to not adapt his driving to the car he has.
Lewis is far more adaptable. I've seen a youtube video of quali laps of Lewis on Ahbu dhabi on two different years. And although on many corners, he had the same line, when you see the throttle and break gauge, you see that he doesn't do it the same way, same results but he does it by controling his car while Button is not able to do it, he can only drive in a certain fashion.
Lewis can balance his car with weight transfer, Button not.
Even Button said it that even on same set-up, he will tend to have more understeer than Lewis. Look at the braking and throttle of Lewis to enter the corners in the last sector.

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Originally Posted by truefan72

a bit of the silver mist in my eyes, but this is beyond ridiculous
and that poor quality control in the last 5 races seems rather lopsided

electrical failure
phantom transmission problems
mechanical failures
etc, etc, etc.

I think Hamilton has made the right decision.

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I love the idea that a team would sacrifice Constructors' points and the invaluable PR which goes with a win, just to settle a score with a driver who is leaving for a rival team. I like a good conspiracy theory as much as the next man, but seriously?

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Originally Posted by The Black Knight

I can't see McLaren winning a championship anytime soon. They are up and down more times than a whores knickers. Whether it be reliability, bad strategy (a department they have always been lacking really), an inconsistent car, a dud car, bad pit stops or whatever, there is always something. No use in winning 5 races a year if you can never win a championship.

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exactly :up:

funny enough when he was coming in with strong performances earlier in the year ( albeit no race victory, although deserved) I was still encouraged by the consistency. And once the victory came and he took the WDC lead, I said to myself that this is the kind of results that win you WDC's. Consistency and a few wins. Sadly the car/team has failed him too often in the latter half of the year where even finishing in the top 4 regularly has eluded him.
I've mentally left mclaren already and can't wait for this season to end soon enough so we can focus on the new challenge.

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Originally Posted by Dave B

I love the idea that a team would sacrifice Constructors' points and the invaluable PR which goes with a win, just to settle a score with a driver who is leaving for a rival team. I like a good conspiracy theory as much as the next man, but seriously?

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I don't think it is done on-purpose, But I do belief there is a lack of 100% effort coming from that side of the garage.
Which inevitably leads to the results we have seen. A system problem with vehicle would show up in both cars, but it is rather odd that only one would consistently break down, while the other seems to have plenty of life in it

I don't buy into sabotaging theories, never have. Mclaren surely are paying their utmost attention to preparing the car as best as they can for both their drivers for the remaining races. At this point, Lewis is just a driving machine fetching valuable WCC points for them, which translates into more TV money and a chance to beat Ferrari in the WCC standings. More wins and more money also means more resources for R&D for next year's car to have a great showing, which keeps the sponsors happy too. It's a win-win for all. Why would they want to ruin their chances?

Lewis obviously wants to end his Mclaren career on a high, so they've got a motivated, bloody fast driver at their disposal to get maximum points and more wins under their belt for the remainder of the season. Why would they deliberately not pay attention to all details of a car they spend millions setting up for every race? Sounds like a REALLY bad business strategy to me just out of spite for a driver. :D

Besides, it's not like Mclaren are magically having all these mechanical problems now. The team has always had the reputation of making bloody fast, but highly unreliable cars. Just ask Mika or Kimi how many of their WDC chances have been binned because of the legendary Mclaren unreliability. When they got it right speed and reliability wise, their drivers shone. Lewis almost had a dominant WDC win in his debut year.

It's motorsports, high performance machines performing at their bleeding maximum for two hours, failures are bound to happen. Mclaren seem to have the lion's share of these failures, probably because of their development rate or maybe they try to make up for a deficit and push the boundaries of their cars a bit more than other teams. Who knows?

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Originally Posted by The Black Knight

I can't see McLaren winning a championship anytime soon. They are up and down more times than a whores knickers. Whether it be reliability, bad strategy (a department they have always been lacking really), an inconsistent car, a dud car, bad pit stops or whatever, there is always something. No use in winning 5 races a year if you can never win a championship.

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Do whores bother with kecks?

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Originally Posted by henners88

Rome wasn't built in a day and we all know lewis is taking a gamble with his move.

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But it was burned in one :D Nevertheless I respect your opinion and understand your point of view. Cheers.

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Originally Posted by F1boat

But it was burned in one :D Nevertheless I respect your opinion and understand your point of view. Cheers.

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Naw took 6 days to burn Rome :p

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Originally Posted by Koz

Naw took 6 days to burn Rome :p

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................and was rebuilt without having any effect on its practice of bitch-slapping Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa for over 400 more years. :dozey:

Whitmarsh: I still don’t get Hamilton’s decision

I hope that the Mercedes improves for next year, but I can't help thinking that Lewis has made a mistake in leaving McLaren.

I don't know what's up with him these days, but everything seemed to change abruptly at the point he fell out with his dad, and he hasn't been the same since.

He seems quite immature for his age and often appears to lack judgement in the things he says and does both on and off the track. Maybe his dad did all his thinking for him, and he now finds it difficult without that guidance.

Let's hope for something better next year.

:)

I am one of the few people who think that Hamilton made the right decision. A change of environment after a decidedly bad year with McLaren will boost his morale and make him happier. McLaren failed him on several occasions this year and who knows how long it will take to get its stuff together. I think it's more rewarding to earn say a forth place in WDC when driving a Mercedes than drive the fastest car then end up in fourth spot anyways because the team screwed up. Granted, Mercedes does not appear to be a particularly bright team right now either.

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Originally Posted by truefan72

I don't think it is done on-purpose, But I do belief there is a lack of 100% effort coming from that side of the garage.
Which inevitably leads to the results we have seen. A system problem with vehicle would show up in both cars, but it is rather odd that only one would consistently break down, while the other seems to have plenty of life in it

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maybe grandpa Bunsen is taking better care his car... after all he's driving most of the time like there's no hurry to get anywhere..

Well now today in Austin,Lewis gets the job done as regards quali,and Bunson gets the bad luck ,OR have they swapped sides in the garage ?
I honestly feel that Lewis has done the correct move next year,and that Merc will have its neck rung out of it next year!And it won't be far off the pace at the start of next year !

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Originally Posted by driveace

Well now today in Austin,Lewis gets the job done as regards quali,and Bunson gets the bad luck ,OR have they swapped sides in the garage ?

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the race is still to come, plenty of time for mclaren to screw up on his side of the garage ;)

McLaren showed their might again... they may have had issues, but a very, very fast car as well.

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Originally Posted by driveace

Well now today in Austin,Lewis gets the job done as regards quali,and Bunson gets the bad luck ,OR have they swapped sides in the garage ?

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Well Jenson did have a chassis that was supposed to have been allocated to Lewis! There was a piece on Sky with Georgie Thompson in the McLaren paint shop working on what was supposed to be Lewis's chassis for Austin, but for whatever reason they shuffled things around and when they arrived in Austin, the car with Georgie's signature on was on Jenson's side of the garage. How's that for conspiracy theory material!

ron dennis interview in the sky post game is so so bitter
sour grapes, get over it

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Originally Posted by truefan72

ron dennis interview in the sky post game is so so bitter
sour grapes, get over it

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Ron always sounds bitter. It's part of his charm.

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Originally Posted by truefan72

ron dennis interview in the sky post game is so so bitter
sour grapes, get over it

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Seriously. That interview was almost cringeworthy.

Here's Ron's interview with Sky post-USGP.

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Originally Posted by henners88

It may have been a chassis Lewis had used in the past or vice versa as they alternate cars all year long.

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They do, but at the time they were painting it, it was scheduled to be used by Lewis in Austin.

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Originally Posted by henners88

Not sure what relevance it has in the grand scheme of things but fair enough.

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The relevance is only as stated in the original post: it's the sort of incidental fact that is often used to support conspiracy theories.

In terms of getting race wins or championships then perhaps he's made the wrong move. However; he's had 6 years at McLaren now, he's probably thinking "Am I going to be racing for McLaren my entire career?", perhaps he thought it was time for something different in his life, now when he's still at the top of his game.

Yes , the old car switch gambit worked for Lewis this time .
It fits perfectly with the sabotage theories of last time when they let him down .

Or , maybe the plan was to give him the good car , with the devious plan of making him rue the fact that he's leaving .

That would make it the old double switcheroo . Oh , those clever McLaren guys .

Of course , though , there is also the evidence , laid out for all to see , with Lewis taking points from Sebastian , that it was actually Ferrari that entered quietly during the night and switched the cars .

Lewis likely knew of the switch immediately , as the "J" car is designed to be slow and puzzling , regarding set-up , and he was fast right away .
This , of course , is the most compelling evidence that he will obviously be in a red car in the near future .

Well , that and the fact that I heard that he was overheard a short while ago in an un-named butcher shop , being schooled on how to properly say "provolone" , which is Italian , and we all know which team speaks Italian .

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Originally Posted by Mark

In terms of getting race wins or championships then perhaps he's made the wrong move. However; he's had 6 years at McLaren now, he's probably thinking "Am I going to be racing for McLaren my entire career?", perhaps he thought it was time for something different in his life, now when he's still at the top of his game.

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Spot On Mark.

This is how I see it.