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FIA Formula One 2019 |OT| Oil Mining vs. Energy Drinks vs. Big Tobacco, pick your poison
- Thread starter Aiii
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The thing is that McLaren were nowhere near the level Mercedes do enjoy and have enjoyed for the past 5 years. Going to Mercedes was a risky move but that was negated by the fact that McLaren hadn't had a consistent championship winning level car for a long while.
Mercedes are still top of the tree so any other team is pretty much a step down for him.
However it wouldn't surprise me to see him go there after next season. I think he'll look at how they perform this year and next and make a decision if he feels they can take the fight to Mercedes. If the status quo is maintained I think Vettel will retire after next season, even if he wins the championship, leaving the door open for Hamilton to Ferrari and Verstappen to Mercedes.
Results aren't the only thing that matter though, as strange as it may sound. Some drivers are in for the records, others for the fame, while some drivers are looking for challenges. We can't possibly know what Hamilton wants to do. I don't expect him to jump ship during the current era either, he knows he's in the best car and is gonna (probably) comfortably win next year as well, getting the 7th title like Schumacher. After that, however, it's a lottery: anyone can have the leading car, so I expect him to look around, see how the various porjects are and decide, knowing fully well that any team would jump through any hoop to get him, even Ferrari.
2021 will be a turbulent year. I'd guess drivers like Hamilton would want to stay with a top team, as absolute performance against the new regs won't be immediately clear until during the season. So I think if there was movement, it'd be for the 2022 season, and only in the case where another team looks strong and/or Merc slips up for some reason.
I doubt it'll be a lottery. 2021 isn't going to be the big shake up people (including FOM) intended it to be.
That's correct, but not even Hamilton (or us) can reliably predict which of the big teams finds the best solution for the new regulations at first. It's unlikely we suddenly have Racing Point or Williams on top, but it wouldn't be outlandish to have a dominant Ferrari, Red Bull, or even McLaren as opposed to Mercedes.
Never underestimate how obsessed Italy is with Ferrari...
And if he picks a team that isn't actually an embarassment in terms of Indy500 preparations, he legitimately has a shot at winning it.
Don't underestimate the appeal of driving for Ferrari for most F1 drivers, Hamilton already said so. Then add the extra appeal if he sees the possibility of winning a title with a Ferrari, something that Alonso and Vettel couldn't (assuming Vettel will not win in 2020)...
I don't believe anything Hamilton says. Maybe if Mercedes won't renew his contract he will think about it...
Don't think is gonna happen tho.
I have to ask which other team has had a legitimate chance then. Since this Mercedes domination started, only one team got anywhere near a chance, and that was Ferrari: twice. Red Bull had a couple wins here and there but at no point they had any chance for a title. In the Red Bull domination era who's the team who went closest to stopping that? Ferrari. McLaren wasn't too far off in 2010 and 2012, but it was ultimately Alonso who fought to the last race. Assuming Hamilton leaves Mercedes, unless there's some behind the scenes chatter we don't know about, Ferrari has the best chance to give him a car capable of winning the title. I don't think this is debatable.
If Hamilton had been driving for Ferrari in 2017 & 2018 instead of Vettel, he would have been WDC with them.
Yep, it's obvious Mercedes is the place to be right now. But if he wants a realistic shot at a title at a different team, Ferrari and Red Bull are the safest bets - not only judging on this era alone but even the entire decade shows this pattern. Of course it's entirely possible he'd go for a choice of heart and try and bring back McLaren to title-winning ways, but they'd have to have an extremely convincing project behind the schemes with guarantees that I don't think they can currently give to Lewis at this point in time. Any other team (Renault, Williams, Racing Point, etc.) seems pretty damn far out of the realms of possibility.
It would be quite something to see him win the WDC there with neither Alonso or Vettel managing it.
Yes and no, because circumstances, cars, rules, etc. change all the time. Even Eddie Irvine got close to winning a title with the Ferrari when the car was great, and so did Massa, plus Raikkonen did win one (and I think I'm not offending many people if I claim he is not on Alonso's or Hamilton's level overall). Hamilton could win 3 titles with Ferrari or be stuck fighting for 10th places because most of the performance depends on the car nowadays, this isn't the 80's when you could bring a trash car to the front with good driving alone.
But for sure, Hamilton winning titles in 3 different teams would be an impressive feat, because that would almost certainly mean he gets at Schumacher's record (or more) despite having fought for titles in more cars.
To be honest I'm not talking about impressiveness from a talent perspective. Even if he lucked into Ferrari on a year of dominance, it would still be quite something to witness in terms of salt levels.
This would be the most enticing thing to me if I was Hamilton; cement your status by doing what your apparent peers could not.
I say this as a Ferrari fan, there is a zero percent chance they don't fuck the regs up.
That said, winning with Ferrari tends to elevate your driver status on account of how many Ferrari fans their are.
I learned Sergio Perez has claimed the all time record of most races without a pole position recently.
I doubt even last year. I like to give Vettel some shit but if the rumours of him feeling like he's got to drive the team as well as the car are true then it's very likely Hamilton would be just as unhappy in the same car.
Mercedes aren't going to be an invincible for forever. Toto and Hamilton have been driving to success for years and they have a much lower staff turnover in the important positions compared to what normally happens when a team becomes successful and key employees move to rivals for more money which I can see happening if Hamilton or Toto leaves the team. I expect Max to stay at RB until the end of next season at least at which point he'll be the driver every team wants and will have the pick of what team he wants to move to.
Actually I'm fairly certain it would be a subtly different set of dumbasses (no doubt with considerable overlap).
I don't think this is so certain.
By that time Hamilton would be considered an ageing driver. I don't think Ferrari or even Mercedes would then be so willing to risk scaring off their young potential future superstars (like Leclerc and Verstappen) to take Hamilton and create the potential for intra-team fighting.
Even if Lewis is still considered the fastest driver on the grid, they might think it better to sacrifice the short term success with him for long term stability with a younger driver, since I assume they'll assume he's gonna lose his pace.
This is like an abusive relationship where both sides are the abuser and the abused, and both can't bring themselves to leave because they don't know what they'd do without the other.
Hopefully McLaren can regain some of their respect that got shattered, then they can finally tell Alonso to f off.
Lewis won't leave Mercedes unless he sees something to suggest they won't be spending big on the 2021 plans. McLaren were already well on the decline when he left and he got the sales pitch from Niki. Then the world told him he was stupid for going to Mercedes. Then he won 4 titles in what, 6 years? Would have been 5/6 had it not been for the insane engine issues he had that year. This year he'll make it 5 in 7.
Matching Schumachers record and doing it in a Ferrari would be kind of cool, but I honestly don't see it happening.
As he'll have already matched it in 2020 :P
Matching Schumachers record and doing it in a Ferrari would be kind of cool, but I honestly don't see it happening.
As he'll have already matched it in 2020 :P
User Banned (1 Week): Trolling, Thread derailment with inflammatory posts, Accumulated infractions for the same behavior.
Hulk to Red Bull, Ocon to Renault during summer break. Talks we're held at Austria.
R.I.P Gasly
R.I.P Gasly
If he doesn't upload a picture of his ass I'll be disappointed.
Its ok, he got a whole week ban. He's only been doing it for what, 3 years?
I thought it'd gotten to the point where everybody just ignores him these days. I often assume they're just doing some silly role-play or low tier trolling.
Been on my ignore list for years. People keep replying so you still see he's posted the same old bullshit.
He is the only person on this forum that I have ignored. I haven't even done this to DTL yet.
I've had him on my ignore list since I asked him to post a source and he said he didn't believe in posting sources lol.
The motivation given seems to be the most baffling. I fail to understand how that was derailing the thread or inflammatory. I know the dude's got a history of fabricating news with no sources given, but is that grounds for getting offed? And even if so, it seems strange it was deemed inflammatory. Odd.
https://drivetribe.com/p/qualified-...aign=main&utm_medium=fb&utm_source=organic_F1
No sources, but an interesting read.
No sources, but an interesting read.
The fact that Speedcafe, the only reputable site in the link, aren't actually reporting it speaks volumes.
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