Sir Lewis Hamilton made his much-anticipated Formula One debut with the Ron Dennis lead McLaren F1 team in 2007 and in his scintillating rookie season, lead the drivers’ championship for some time before losing out to Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen.
The super talented Hamilton came back in 2008 and won the title with some brilliant performances, and then signed a five-year deal with McLaren that would have the then 23-year-old phenom locked up until 2012, with the promise of a lot more success to follow. The much-anticipated success did not materialize. A fifth-place finish in 2009 was followed by a fourth-place finish in in 2010, another fifth-place finish in 2011 and back up to fourth again in 2012. By that time frustration had set in with the heavy commercial workload that was being required of the young racer, that coupled without more meaningful success and the championship winning car that was promised meant the end was near.
Hamilton’s move from McLaren to Mercedes was announced at the end of September 2012, the F1 world was stunned, and reflexively the move was scoffed at and ridiculed by some of the who’s who of Formula One at the time.
Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren – “Mercedes is a great partner of ours and they are a great team. But for anyone leaving McLaren, and he wants to win, I think that’s a mistake because I have faith and belief in this team. Whether you measure it over the last four races, four years or 40 years, we’re a fantastic team. So I would say to any driver who wanted to win in this sport: ‘Come and join McLaren and aspire to join McLaren’. I wouldn’t advise anyone to leave McLaren if they want to win”
Jenson Button – then a McLaren driver – “It is his decision, although I personally don’t think it is the right decision.”
Ed Owen, Sports Review – “With the field as intensely competitive as ever, now is completely the wrong time to embark on such a project. As it now stands, one of the sport’s leading lights seems to have been sold a dream and a promise – if he can stick out the difficult first season, his gamble may come to fruition. Yet if he doesn’t, we might be watching the sad sight of a man with limitless potential and huge talent witnessing his chance to make a legacy rot away in mid-grid purgatory. That’s the risk, and it is hard to be convinced that it outweighs the potential glory”
Joe Saward, G+ E-Magazine – “Lewis Hamilton does not know much about racing history and so cannot learn from the mistakes of others. Perhaps he thinks that if it fails he will at least have the consolation of earning loads more money and being a bigger star, thanks to his hustling management that will sell his image here, there and everywhere. That might make him an international celebrity on a bigger scale than he is, but it will not make him a racing legend. Perhaps Mercedes will pull it off and then Hamilton will look clever, but I fear that this will be a move similar to James Hunt joining Wolf; Emerson Fittipaldi joining Fittipaldi, Jacques Villeneuve moving to BAR or Niki Lauda’s ill-fated move to Brabham. History relates that you do not leave a winning team in F1 unless it is to go to another proven winner…”
Six Formula One World Drivers’ Championship later and is 7th overall, needless to say, they have been proven to be shockingly wrong.
Clearly I have buried the lead here. I believe Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari would be a spectacular move for the sport and a legendary legacy making move for the driver, if he could deliver something that the storied Scuderia Ferrari formula one team has not achieved for the past 15 years, a world driving championship of any kind in a sport that it has the deepest roots.
Hear me out on this……
Imagine being a racing God over gods — Lewis Hamilton is undoubtedly F1 royalty, there is no F1 Mount Rushmore without him being at the very pinnacle of it. He has nothing more to prove in the sport, but a move to Ferrari that brings with it a title puts him in another stratosphere as far as F1 in concerned. It puts him at the top of any list when the greats of any sports are being discussed. It removes any comparison between Hamilton and Schumacher, and it destroys any argument about who is the greatest F1 driver using the word “arguably” as a qualifier. As the French would say, he becomes the crème de la crème.
I am not done….
The ancient Greek God Zeus was considered the king of gods and ruled from his perch on Mount Olympus, Lewis Hamilton is already a racing god, a move to Ferrari that brings with it a world driving championship makes Hamilton, Zeus. Why be a racing god when you can be the king of gods, why be on Mount Rushmore when you can rule in singularity, rule from a place where no F1 driver has gone before, why not rule from your very own Mount Olympus?
The F1 world, whether they like it or not, would undoubtedly be enthralled, at least be intrigued and certainly be entertained to see a motivated Hamilton on the move in a Red Ferrari in search of an 8th world driving championship!
To assuage the detractors, this is not an argument for an 8th title, he can get that with Mercedes, and yes, it is a pipe dream as pipe dreams gets, we know, but it was Hamilton’s unhappiness at McLaren that served as the catalyst for change, and I quote the man himself after the change was announced, “Mercedes-Benz has such an incredible heritage in motorsport, along with a passion for winning which I share. “Together, we can grow and rise to this new challenge. I believe that I can help steer the Silver Arrows to the top and achieve our joint ambitions of winning the world championships.”
For his part, Hamilton has repeatedly said he intends to finish his career at Mercedes, we have no reason to doubt him. Like is said, it is a pipe dream, but I can dream!
We know that Hamilton has been frustrated with Mercedes current performance, he has openly stated that they have not listened to him. It has been two years of mediocrity, the McLaren parallels while still miniscule are evident, and yes, while a longshot, it is possible for me to imagine Lewis rethinking things and wanting a fresh start after multiple seasons of not being able to compete for driving championships. After all, when you have achieved what he has in the sport, not much else matters.
Ferrari is a top-down organization and the philosophical divide with Hamilton in how they go about their business is so wide you could drive a planet through it, that coupled with Hamilton’s off-track activities clearly does not fit in with the organization’s DNA. But that is not what should hinder either party here, that cannot be the motivating factor to not explore the possibility for track dominance when it can clearly benefit them both in unimaginable ways, if they could pull it off. Executive chairman John Elkann already knows that, he is a business man of the highest order.
Mr. Elkann, can you not hear Lewis Hamilton saying these words and be intrigued? – “FERRARI has such an incredible heritage in motorsport, along with a passion for winning which I share. “Together, we can grow and rise to this new challenge. I believe that I can help steer the PRANCING HORSE back to the top and achieve our joint ambitions of winning the world championships.”
Do not be cowed by the history of past big-name signings that have not panned out Mr. Elkann, be bold, none of those signings was the indomitable Lewis Hamilton, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for both team and driver. As the saying goes, go big, or go home!
In the frenzied moment of Hamilton announcing his move to Mercedes in 2012 and in most people’s haste to weigh in, the guy that seemed most measured was Pete Gill of Sky Sport Online who at the time wrote – “Only time will tell if he (Hamilton) has made an inspired choice or driven his career up a cul-de-sac. In the meantime, it’s fair to say that the 27-year-old has taken an almighty gamble in fixing his future to a team without much of a history (in its current guise at least). In mitigation, Mercedes should be in pole position when the new engine regulations are introduced for 2014, and if Hamilton believes he needs the challenge of being a driving-force and not just a driver then who are we to argue? But at this stage it’s hard to shake off the impression that, if we are to treat this solely as a F1 decision, Hamilton has gambled everything on a hunch which owes more to emotion than calculation. Time cannot come quickly enough”
Time has come and gone, history has proven Hamilton right. It is time for him to do it again, but this time with the most storied F1 team on the grid. It is time do it in a Ferrari.
At 38 and armed with the idea that in George Russell Mercedes has found his replacement, in a car that has Jekyll and Hyde tendencies, I can see the promise, the allure and excitement of a fresh challenge intriguing the man from Stevenage. The iconic stature that comes with being the one to bring Ferrari back to its winning ways is the holy grail I seek.
Ferrari could absolutely use the brilliance of a Lewis Hamilton to hasten its return back to its glory days. They would get a joint-record holding seven-time World Drivers’ Champion (tied with Michael Schumacher), 103 wins, 103 pole position, 195 podium finishes and probably more importantly a man with limitless bandwidth to absorb the pressure that comes with being in Ferrari, a man with a vast reservoir of racing knowledge that can instantaneously aide in the development of the car, a man with skills the likes of which no Ferrari driver as ever possessed. You would also get a motived man still looking to separate himself from Schumacher in the WDC category, a man who understands what doing his part to bring the Maranello outfit back to its winning ways would mean for his legacy, you would be getting the very best Lewis Hamilton has to offer, which is better than anything you currently have.
Let’s not debate if it should be plan A or Plan C, Mr. Elkann, make the call to Anthony Hamilton, I suspect you will find a receptive response on the other end of that phone.
Lewis Hamilton could bring you back from the wilderness sooner rather than later.
