Hamilton is DONE at Mclaren

And Brawn adapted the chassis to suit an engine it was never designed for and managed to win both the WDC and the WCC with it!

(Something Honda never even came close to doing!)

 

I heard it was actually more of a Super Aguri designed car than Honda.

 

Can you provide a link to that please?
It is well known that Honda started work on what was to become the BGP001 as early as mid/late 2007, as they knew big changes were coming for 2009. IIRC, before the BGP001 came along, Honda had hired a MotoGP aerodynamist and that coupled with wrong/faulty data at their wind tunnel, produced one of the worst cars for the 2007(2008?) season.

 

At the end of the day, it had nothing to do with Lewis Hamilton's decision to leave McLaren!

 

http://willthef1journo.wordpress.com/2009/12/16/wirth-rejects-laughable-brawn-sob-story/


They say it started as a Super Aguri and that either Super Aguri or Dome was the one that provided the double diffuser idea and that Honda took it over after Super Aguri pulled out.

 

If that story is true, then the double diffuser was NOT Ross Brawn's idea. Either way, work on that car started almost 2 years before the 2009 season, and Honda definitely put in their work and $$$$ into it. For all intents and purposes, I still call the BGP001 a Honda car, powered by Mercedes.

PS.

Also would like to state that contrary to popular belief, the double diffuser was NOT the sole reason the Brawn cars were successful as a lot of people tend to believe. Sure, it helped, but as we saw in some of the races in 2009 when other cars ran into the Brawns and destroyed their diffusers, they were still competitive and dominating after the accidents. A testament to the overall strong balance of the cars.

 

Hamilton is DONE at Mclaren

 

Give or take a few races and a possible championship.

 

negative ghostrider

 

That some sort of new dance?

Just googled it.
I'm not sure which meaning is worst.

 

I didn't see the numbers, but it was an interview with Whitmarsh. They asked him what went wrong, etc. He said it was clear in hindsight that they had mismanaged the deal with re-signing Lewis, but that they had made him an offer that was the highest pay package of any F1 driver ever, and that Lewis turned it down... and that he felt that Lewis must be seeking things other than $$, but that he felt McLaren had a track record proving they were the best option for winning WDC's.

 

So, you're right because the entire F1 press who knows Lewis and/or his management and/or Martin Whitmarsh and/or people within the teams who would know are all propagating a vast conspiracy to lie and obfuscate the truth.

It's amazing the justifications people come up with

But congrats on seeing through it all

 

Well said.

HOWEVER, here's a counterpoint...

McLaren should be running at the top. But...they've been "almost good enough" for years now. An F1 drivers career only lasts so long... and frankly, it looks like the McLaren of the last 10 years isn't the same one as the Hakkinen days. How long is Lewis to wait for those glory days to return? Also, people get mad at him for complaining about his team when things go bad, but they sure have made a lot of mistakes and he's suffered a lot because of it. A WDC in his rookie year is just one example. He could very well lose the WDC this year because of it too (engine failure in the prior race when he was in P1.. would have closed the gap to Fernando immensely).

Second, as you say, there is always the chance of another team doing a fantastic job. Mercedes could certainly do it... they aren't an HRT or a Caterham. They are top shelf competitors.

Third, leaving one of the best teams to go to one of the mid-pack teams didn't do anything to kill Alonso's career (when he went back to Renault). These deals are always hero or zero affairs. Remember when Button stuck with Honda->Brawn. If he had moved on, it would have been to a crap team, or out of F1. But he got a WDC out of it. If the Benz is great next year, Hamilton looks like a genius. But it's unlikely to be a back marker car. And if he's confident in his talent, he'll make it look good anyway, like Alonso did to the Renault, which will further increase his stock.

Fourth, contracts in F1 are worth the paper they are printed on. Not coincidence that Alonso has a 3-year extension, is it? You heard it here first - Hamilton to McLaren in 2016

Lastly, it's not like the situation with McLaren turned ugly and he's not welcome there anymore. On the contrary, I bet if things went bad with Mercedes, then McLaren would take him back without hesitation.




Personally, if I was Lewis, I'd have stayed at McLaren... but I totally see what he's doing. You can't drive for one F1 team all your life... and since there are no openings at Ferrari or Red Bull, where else is he supposed to go? It should be really interesting to watch.

 

Hey Art,

From the horses mouth!

From Autsoport, edited for brevity, my emphasis added;

*Now* do you believe that you were mistaken?

Cheers,
Ian

 

Absolutely correct - the 2009 championship car was designed by Honda with huge resources through much of 2008. Let's not forget who was hired by Honda at the start of 2007 as Technical Director, who spent 2007 putting together a new technical team with the best and brightest, and who spent 2008 directing that talented team in designing the 2009 car - Ross Brawn.

The 2009 Brawn championship winning car wasn't just a Honda, it was 100% a Brawn Honda.

 

Just as the title of my thread stated "hamilton is DONE at Mclaren". I do not care if it is was from a meteor hitting Woking headquarters. I was one month ahead of the news. Pretty perceptive for a yank huh?

 

A stopped clock...

 

yep

 

+1

I'l give it one more try..... You said;

and;

While it turned out to be true, it certainly wasn't for lack of effort on Mclaren's part - They wanted him to stay as evidenced by their offering to make him the highest paid driver in the field - Hardly the actions of a team that was firing him as you claim.

I don't understand why you can't see that.

Cheers,
Ian

 

He can.

 

Just had to bring up this blast from the past. Very interesting to see how things worked out. Most of us vigorously questioned the move by Hamilton. I guess he's had the last laugh.

 

Blast from the past when the F1 forum still had civility and class.

 

I didn't review the thread, but have thought about it, also. It seems to be the accepted notion that only Mercedes saw that there was LOTS of work to be done, which explains their seemingly top heavy management ranks.

 

I wasn't here then but 'matters not....I figger F1 itself started losing it, ooohhhh, somewhere in the eighties....

 

Seems to me most of the same but after 5+ years of saying Hamilton is a pretty good driver yet constantly being told we must see the light and stop saying he's a bad driver, it's the Hamilton apologists seemingly unable to differentiate dislike vs seeing skills.

He was disliked then, he's disliked by even more now but most if not all admitted he's pretty skilled driver. But there seemed to be a lot of defensive noise back then as there is now. Seems to be the ''anti hamilton'' people got fed up with the noise most of all. Added to that the silver car winning quite a lot of races and antagonizing...