JimClarkFan wrote:I wonder how much of hand Hamilton has in this.
I must say, I have been impressed by Hamilton's approach thus far, I didn't think he could lead a team but the Macca boy has had a great start at Merc. The team is noticeably better this year already... how much of that is down to Ham is unknown.
Interested in hearing others opinions.
Unless he'll be paying Lowe out of his own pocket (was it rumoured million instead of hundreds of thousands?) I'd say Hamilton had zero to do with that.
If Lowe is to replace Brawn for the latter's role in Mercedes' lack of success, let's look at McLaren in recent years:
- 2009 - major aero problems, big design errors under new rules that cost them probably until today, good recovery aided by KERS advantage
- 2010 - head start with an f-duct, inability to properly implement blown diffuser, lost development battle to Ferrari who had to implement both blown diffuser and f-duct,
- 2011 - best of the rest, RB far in front,
- 2012 - best opportunity under new rules, RB was for the first time beatable, this one should hurt the most, lost to Ferrari in constructor's and driver 's standings. You can't blame tyres and Hulkenberg for that.
Just to be clear, I'm not blaming Lowe for all of this, it's just a reminder that if Brawn and Haug are to be blamed and fired for Mercedes' problems, McLaren's record wasn't stellar either recently.
