Does Anyone think that Piastri or Antonelli need to replace Hami?

Sorry, but the Elkann-Hamilton deal has not much to do with LH increasing his personnal wealth.
It's about the sponsorship of MISSION44, the foundation Hamilton launched a few years ago to help young people from poor background. Get the details by visiting mission44.org
Getting support and recognition from a multinational was key to the success of this charity.
First, Hamilton proposed to fulfill an ambassador role for Mercedes against $400million funding; they refused.
Next, John Elkann heard of it and accepted on behalf of EXOR NV (Ferrari parent company), on the condition that LH drives for them. This is why I said in post #23, that a tax avoidance (for EXOR) must be the reason for this.
In Europe, financing charities usually is attached to a tax rebate for the benefactor.
Here, large companies seek charities to sponsor to obtain a lighter tax bill.

 

Agree, money was probably not the main motivation, but it may very well have played a part.

The "he is rich already" argument is not too strong: I can think of a bald American guy who is so incredibly rich, that LH seems poor compared to him. But still this bald guy's tiny wiener gets extra hard when he thinks about getting a few millions extra by prohibiting his warehouse workers to go to the bathroom.

Not saying its the same situation with LH, but 100 mil a year makes up for a lot of things...

 

Well, Hamilton´s career was at a dead end at Mercedes anyway. They are not a guarantee of success anymore, and even if they were, he would have to beat Russell first, something that proved difficult for him these last seasons. He had nothing to loose. Unfortunately then he met Leclerc.

Antonelli hasn´t showed much yet. Ferrari already has Bearman if they want to take a gamble with a rookie, and for much less money.

Finally, if Piastri doesn´t win the championship this year I could see him leaving McLaren soon. The relation with Norris and the bosses has been getting sour lately, and if he doesn´t get a championship to counterbalance that he could end playing second fiddle. If Ferrari is the only top team available then, why not?

 

Hamilton wants to win another championship. If he was still at Mercedes he'd be "not the champion" there. Mercedes doesn't have a title winning car this year. At the moment Russell is in 4th and Hamilton is in 6th. He's not pining after being 4th, he wants to be 1st. So IMHO, Hamilton definitely made the right call to switch. Eventually he will retire and he got a better deal in regards to post-F1 life (and current salary) from Ferrari than what Mercedes was willing to offer him, and he took a chance on Ferrari. Next year the regs change and it will be a toss up again, one more bite at the apple.

 

He was also losing to Russell again, so chance would be high that if a title contender car, Russell would beat him to a championship.

Lewis demanded an extraordinary wage and 10 year legacy plan with Mercedes that the board wasn't falling for. Ferrari was dumb enough and worth the gamble to Lewis. Have a good car and potentially win the title? F1 Legend status. Bad car and no title? Go around the world telling everyone how dumb Ferrari is.

Easy.

 

He's clearly not telling the world Ferrari is dumb. There is no conspiracy here. He was offered and utterly recruited by Ferrari management lol. So an F1 driver says not to that? Maybe Max but not anyone else. Was it obvious he was slower at Mercedes - yes. Was it utterly obvious that he would be slower than Charles - yes. There is no real debate or facts about anything else related to the move. Ferrari are the problem with a car and team operations/ procedures that are less than optimal. Again that has ZERO to do with the drivers. If Ferrari were more competitive with this current car with wins etc and actually challenging for a title all this would be labeled 'genius' lol. Its not gone well but the car is the major issue overall. The rest is babble about a driver that is polarizing in the media. Call Ferrari and vent on this guy and then tell us how it went:

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Not yet.

 

Maybe it was the $100 million and the fact he had no where else to go but retire?

 

Ferrari is ****ed.
Newey was the big chance to make Ferrari great again, and they ****ed it. Aston is building an amazing team, and i wouldn't be surprised if Charles went there. Like someone said, ferrari needs a revolution like the one they had in 95. Ferrari missed all the top figures from other teams that left. Newey, Weathley, Rob Marshal, etc, etc......instead they went for crapilton...well that's what they got, CRAP, loads of it! The only guy i feel sorry for is Charles, he deserves better. I think Oscar is fed up at Mclaren, because he knows they're screwing him, he is better at everything than Lando, and he will still improve, so he would be a great asset, but coming to Ferrari right now will only serve to get rich, not to get titles. Unless we turn the team around, there's no need to bring good drivers, we can just keep Hamilton.

 

I don’t think Ferrari ‘F’d’ the deal with Newey. I think Newey did. He never intended to go to Ferrari. He used Ferrari as a bargaining chip to gain leverage against Stroll. Furthermore Newey wouldn’t have solved the issue of culture and management. He could only perhaps have delivered a competitive car maybe in spite of the culture and management.

 

^^^^^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^^^^^