It’s been a little over 15 years since Lewis Hamilton made his debut in Formula 1 in 2007, making him at the wheel of a team that had supported him from the minor leagues to the long-awaited leap in quality in the Circus: the McLaren. With the house from Woking, the Briton came close to winning the world title already in his debut season, however winning it the following year in extremis, really on the last lap of the last GP on the calendar.
From that moment on, ‘The Hammer’ went on for another four championships at the wheel of McLaren, only to accept the court of the Mercedes in 2013, with which he won another six world titles since then. Limited to reasons which prompted Hamilton to leave the team that had made him grow to embrace the Silver starthe 37-year-old Englishman wanted to clarify and underline them in a double interview with Valentino Rossi a Sky Sport F1during which the seven-time world champion recounted what happened at the end of his contract, which expires at the end of 2012: “I’ve been with McLaren for a long time – commented number 44 – until 2012, i.e. when the contract expired. At that moment I started thinking about what I could do, starting to manage my future completely by myself: I took notes on the pros and cons of each team, and what their goals were. “
However, the element that prompted the British to accept for Mercedes was a face to face with Ross Brawnfresh from a world title in 2009 with the Brawn GP, then sold to the returning German team: “Mercedes was already part of my starting team – Hamilton added, referring to the use of German engines in McLaren – but when she got back into F1 she was really fighting: it was something like the fifth best team. However, it was at that moment that Ross Brawn came to my house for tea, and he began to explain projects to me that were planned to improve the team’s level of competitiveness. It seemed surreal to me, because then Mercedes was really struggling with Schumacher, but it was Ross who convinced me. Later, Niki Lauda he phoned me to tell me to come, and he too reassured me about Brown’s ability to re-establish the team: it was a joint effort of the two of them that brought me to Mercedes “.
In conclusion, Hamilton cited examples of other champions who decided to pursue their careers elsewhere, moreover at a time when they themselves were already on the crest of the wave in their respective categories: “I think I’ve seen people like Rossi and Schumacher move to a team that wasn’t winning at the time – explained the Englishman – but the idea of building something special in that team it was really exciting. If you join a winning team, there is less passion, and I wanted to live it instead. Obviously I didn’t know what would happen, but I believed that, at some point, we would win with the decisions that were made: we won our first race in 2013, a very competitive year and then, in 2014, there was the V6, with which we have won everything “.
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