Hamilton to Mercedes: inspired or idiotic?

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re aware of the huge news that Lewis Hamilton, after six seasons at McLaren, is taking the gamble of leaving Woking and joining Mercedes GP in place of Michael Schumacher.

At first glance, this may seem like something of a foolhardy decision. After all, McLaren has a rich history of producing competitive cars on a regular basis, whilst ‘Team Brackley’ has had, at best, an erratic record since it joined the grid as BAR in 1999 – besides the 2009 season, during which Brawn GP defied all expectations by taking Jenson Button to the title, the team has just two race wins to its name (Hungary 2006 and China 2012).

It seems that the popular viewpoint is that the decision was one largely motivated by money, but in the end Mercedes didn’t offer Hamilton significantly more money than McLaren, who were forced to up their initial bid. While the Stuttgart marque did offer greater commercial freedom, which no doubt would have appealed to Hamilton’s management team, XIX Entertainment, that in itself would have provided insufficient allure to lead to such a momentous decision.

The 27-year-old is no longer the fresh-faced youngster who burst on to the Formula One scene with so much verve in 2007. Barring a miraculous end to this season, Hamilton will have just one title to show for his partnership with McLaren: many would argue, Lewis himself included, that this isn’t an accurate representation of his talent. Such a statement isn’t an attack on McLaren for failing to provide Hamilton with the tools to do the job, but it has been clear since the middle of last year that the Hamilton-McLaren partnership was beginning to run out of steam.

All Twittergate at Spa did was bring to the surface underlying tensions between team and driver that had been building for some time. As Edd Straw of Autosport points out, the fact that McLaren had been responsible for Hamilton’s rise through the ranks and ultimately his F1 debut had lead to a paternalistic relationship, one that was stifling Hamilton’s ‘development’ (for lack of a better word) as a driver.

Some have suggested that Hamilton’s decision to leave is a betrayal to the team that gave him his big chance, but what else does Hamilton owe his team? After six years of loyal service, in which time Lewis has delivered 20 wins and the team’s only drivers’ title of the past decade, the answer to that is nothing; how realistic would it have been for the Brit to remain bound to McLaren for his entire career? Hamilton, as with all racing drivers, has to ensure he capitalises on his talent as best he can without concerning himself with the welfare of McLaren or any other team.

A switch to Mercedes could prove the making of Hamilton. After three seasons of having to share equal number one status with Jenson Button, Hamilton now has the opportunity to mould the team around himself. Michael Schumacher did much the same thing when he moved from Benetton to Ferrari, also with the help of Ross Brawn, thus laying the foundations for half-a-decade of dominance by the German driver.

The new-for-2014 regulations, which will see the current generation of 2.4 litre normally-aspirated V8 engines give way to a new breed of turbocharged 1.6 litre V6 units, give Mercedes a golden opportunity to become the team to beat in F1. Such a prospect will certainly have appealed to Hamilton, and the challenge of stepping into unfamiliar territory with a chance of meteoric success will have provided the perfect pretext for Hamilton to fly the McLaren nest.

Even if the Hamilton-Mercedes partnership, as many seem to already be predicting, doesn’t bear the fruit that both parties hope for, then at least Hamilton will emerge from the experience as a far more complete driver than he would ever have been by just staying at McLaren. Either way, the move all but guarantees Mercedes’ commitment to F1 for the medium term, which had been in doubt amid the wranglings of drafting a new Concorde Agreement. And that can’t be bad for the sport.

What's more, F1 fans will finally have their questions about just how good Nico Rosberg really is answered. Hamilton will provide a high benchmark against which the German will be able to measure himself, something he's lacked with Schumacher and previous teammates such as Alex Wurz and Kazuki Nakajima. In turn, that may give us our clearest idea yet of how Schumacher Mk II had been performing during his three-year stint with the Silver Arrows. 

So, what implications does this move have for the rest of the grid? McLaren’s assertions that they had no ‘Plan B’ in place should Hamilton leave were clearly deceptive, as Sergio Perez was announced as Button’s new teammate for 2013 as soon as confirmation that Hamilton was leaving surfaced.

After a series of highly impressive performances for Sauber this season, the young Mexican was widely tipped as the prime contender to replace the underperforming Felipe Massa considering his status as a member of Ferrari’s Young Driver Academy. However, Ferrari President Luca di Montezemelo’s claim that Perez was too inexperienced to join the Scuderia at this stage of his career will have forced Sergio to explore other avenues.

McLaren’s Martin Whitmarsh confessed the team had been monitoring the 22-year-old’s progress, and decided that he would be the best long-term prospect of the available options. Considering those options included Paul Di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg, that’s high praise indeed. Di Resta had been earmarked as the most likely driver to take Hamilton’s place at McLaren should the Mercedes switch go ahead, but the fact that Perez has largely outperformed his teammate Kamui Kobayashi gave him the rightful edge.

On the other hand, neither Di Resta nor Hulkenberg have been able to establish clear superiority over the other, and as a result both look likely to stay put at Force India for the time being. Massa meanwhile will almost certainly remain at Ferrari next season, Maranello’s failure to sign Perez being perhaps the clearest sign yet that Sebastian Vettel is destined to don red overalls in 2014.

Hamilton’s move to Mercedes furthermore leaves Schumacher in the cold. Most would probably advise the German to take the hint and bow out of the sport at the end of the season, but the fact that the German’s manager has been in talks with Sauber suggests that the sport’s most successful ever driver isn't quite ready to hang up his helmet just yet. Pirelli tester and former Toro Rosso driver Jaime Alguersauri is also in the frame to replace the McLaren-bound Perez, as is Marussia’s Charles Pic whose seat is likely to go the way of GP2 driver Max Chilton next year.