https://www.planetf1.com/news/lewis-hamilton-always-winning-car/
Not just a winning car, but a winning team behind the car. He certainly "lucked" into it when he signed into Mercedes. I'm sure certain drivers wouldn't mind being in Hamiltons shoes.
There was no consensus at the time that the move to MB from McLaren was a smart decision. A lot of people thought he was crazy to leave McLaren at the time. That may get the record for understatement of the year,... or even decade! Can you name a single F1 driver that wouldn't rather have been the number 1 driver at MB for the last 6 years?
Lauda knew ! And used his powers or persuasion very well on Lewis. Hamilton was being kept honest by Button even though Uncle Ron was firmly in Hamilton's corner.
The next question is why Mercedes asked Nikki Lauda to contact Hamilton among the pool of drivers at the time? I don't think it was by chance they targeted him to lure him out of McLaren. He had already show talent immediatly as soon as he joined F1.
I wish Mario had had a longer F1 career. Winning a championship for the Scuderia would have been a great achievement. I was privileged to see him win the Belgian GP in the fabulous Lotus 79 in his championship season. And his epic drive in the Ferrari 312 at the Questor Grand Prix oddity. For my money he’s the greatest all around driver ever, right up there with Moss as someone would could drive anything, and turn a slug into a winner.
Best car, what winner didn't have the best equipment? In order to win, you have to put yourself in a position to capitalize on success. Lewham has been very good at that. Hell, Vettel makes more mistakes in a race weekend than Lewham has made his entire career.
So basically Andretti is saying Hamilton's amazing talent has been sought after buy the top teams since he first step foot in F1
Button would have been a good choice, but he didn't fit with Mercedes marketing push into the "Urban" market. I'm surprsied Jenson didn't lodge a complaint for discrimination
Button never demonstrated the obsessive passion to win at all costs that must be deep inside a WDC. He won the title once on the back of Ross Brawn, and then he descended into being a journeyman driver...enjoying the life but not desperate to win it again. DR is there now, the way Hulkenberg was and Kimi and Vettle and Perez and all the other has-beens. Moss drove to win even when he knew his car would never make it. I think Ronnie Peterson's death took away the glow of Mario's WDC and perhaps also took away the desire to repeat it. Love, children, whatever, when anything becomes more important than winning, you stop driving as hard as you used to.
Smarmy Martin Whitmarsh was Team Principal and CEO of McLaren Racing during the Button/Hamilton years. Ron Dennis had almost virtually no involvement with the F1 team during that period.
Involved in day-to-day or not, Ron remained the boss. IIRC it was Lauda who advised Button not to go to McLaren, as he labelled it "Hamilton's Lair", and that Button would struggle to thrive. Nevertheless Button accomplished an impressive points tally during his 3 years with Hamilton.
Agree - and that's what makes Schumacher's speed even more impressive. Love, children, family, responsibilities. And yet he was 10/10ths day in, day out. Always fully committed.
From the outisde, yes...but internally? Mclaren had, since the late 90s, the full support from Mercedes. They where really Mercedes' Factory team. When Mercedes bought Brawn in 2010, Brawn knew they had a car that was NOT developed since late 2008. They stood still. All other teams developed. It would take a number of years (and enormous amounts of money) to get to the top. 2014 rules where dreamed up, the foundation had been laid already with Michael, Brawn and the fantastic Mercedes power unit....whilst the rest was squabbling over which engine configuration to use, the Mercedes team was already starting to perfect the package....Whether it was V6T or V8T was meaningless. Lauda in the meantime quite simply told Elton exactly what would happen....the factory support Mclaren had enjoyed for so long was diminishing and as good as gone by the time Hybrid era would start. He showed Elton around the enormous factory. Mclaren had no hope fighting that without factory support...even if they build a great chassis/aero package, the bods at Merc HPE would never allow the customer team to win. No special engines allowed... Add to that that the man Elton was supposed to have easily defeated was doing a pretty handy job at proving the opposite for 3 years. Big pay package guaranteed and a deal was made and the rest was history.
It said winner not WDC, but fine. Schumacher won titles with the slower car and certainly challenged drivers VERY hard (for the title) with cars nowhere near title worthy.
Hamilton is not loved by the Tifosi. He has made a career of beating Ferrari. But no one can say the man lacks talent. He worked hard to be in the position to move to Mercedes when Michael finally retired for good. Mercedes was the dominant car and team for a few years and Lewis capitalized on it. But for the last 1.5 years Ferrari has been on par with the MB to the point that the winner now is coming down to who is the better driver. I suspect that Lewis could win in the Ferrari also. Would probably make it look so easy that people would say that the big red was now the car to beat. Vettel has lost his edge. His young teammate has him playing 2nd fiddle. Leclerc is one of the two hot young drivers along with Verstappen. Either can beat Lewis on a good day. But Lewis can still win on a bad day. When they used to share data like fuel flow, Lewis was consistently lapping at the same pace with less fuel flow than his teammate or the other competition. That is a measure of how smooth and in control he is, able to carry more corner speed and having to brake less for the same corners. It is a measure of the man's skill, not his car's capabilities. He is well positioned to win a 7th title the delay in the 2020 season could be his demise. MB optimizes their car to win the most points at the most tracks overall. It is good on certain tracks and not so good on others. If some of the races for which his car is good get canceled his overall performance could suffer. But I would not bet against him this year.
