Well it has finally been made official as news broke this morning that after 5 years driving for the team and 13 years associated with them Lewis Hamilton is leaving McLaren for Mercedes at the end of this season. Hamilton has signed a three year contract to race alongside Nico Rosberg. McLaren have announced that Sauber's Sergio Perez will partner Jesnon Button at the Woking based squad next season.
The news that Hamilton has joined Mercedes for next season has come as no surprise to me as I believe that it was time for the Brit to leave McLaren. So McLaren will have to alter the way they work for the rest of the season in relation to the development of next season's car as they won't want Hamilton taking information across to Mercedes.
The news also affectively forces Michaeal Schumacher out of Formula One as Hamilton will be replacing him. I can understand why Hamilton decided to move, Mercedes are a factory backed team and unlike McLaren they build their own engines which could be crucial as Formula One switch to 1.6 litre V6 turbo charged engines.
I believe that McLaren have signed a fantastic driver to replace Hamilton in the form of Sergio Perez and I firmly believe that he will fit in extremely well at the team. He will also get on very well with Jenson Button. It also means that Jenson can start moulding the team around him as Hamilton did during his time at McLaren.
With official confirmation of Hamilton's move there will be a domino effect down as team's will begin to confirm their line-ups. Also with Perez signing for McLaren, Ferrari have been caught on the hop as Perez was a member of the team's young driver programme.
Hamilton joined McLaren in 2007 after dominating the GP2 series Formula One's feeder championship. During his time at McLaren Hamilton has won 20 races, been on the podium 48 times, and has been on pole position 24 times and narrowly missed out on winning the championship in his first season to Kimi Raikkonen. He went on to win the championship in 2008.
Commenting on his new signing, Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn who only yesterday said that they were still in talks with Michael Schumacher over his future said that he believes that in Lewis and Nico they have the perfect dynamic in the team.
In relation to Michael Schumacher, his future is uncertain, Sauber owner, Peter Sauber said recently that he would be willing to offer Schumacher a drive if he became available, however as I have mentioned previously Schuamcher will be 44 years old before the start of next season so whether or not Suchmacher would want to rejoin Peter Sauber who he raced for in sports cars before his F1 career is yet to be seen.
However I believe that it is more then likely he will leave the sport.
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