During the week we had confirmation that Mark Webber is staying at RedBull for the 2013 season. With that announcement a piece of the F1 jigsaw puzzle has been put in place. It also closes a potential door for McLaren's Lewis Hamilton.
Hamilton made his debut with McLaren Mercedes in 2007 and had a fantastic debut season. He won the driver's championship in his second year with the team but now appears to have become disillusioned with the performance of this year's McLaren car. Lewis has only managed to pick up one win so far this season at the Canadian GrandPrix in Montreal.
At the European GrandPrix he was involved in a accident with the Williams of Pastor Maldonado an accident that was completely the Venezuelan's fault and then last weekend in Silverstone he finished in 8th place and he is now in 4th place in the driver's championship on 92 points, 37 point's behind leader Fernando Alonso and he is just 9 points ahead of Kimi Raikkonen who is having a fantastic comeback season with the Lotus team.
A number of week's ago Hamilton said that he would not announce his future plans until the end of the season so we'll have to wait and see what his result's are like for the rest of the year. In my opinion the next two race's in Germany and Hungary are going to be crucial for Hamilton's future.
It is looking increasingly likely that there will be no change's at any of the top team's for next season with Mark Webber signing and extension to his RedBull deal there is no seat there. Ferrari are looking likely to re-sign Felipe Massa although had he been leaving the team there was going to be no way that Lewis would have partnered Alonso again after their disasterous year they had together at McLaren in 2007.
Mercedes look set to hold on to Schumacher and Lotus have their driver's signed up for at least another year. Lewis has never had to negotiate a new contract as his first deal in F1 was for five years. Following his win in Canada, McLaren chairman Ron Dennis said that Hamilton would have to settle for a pay cut as his last deal was struck when the economic situation was a lot better.
McLaren never reveal how much a driver's deal is worth however it is believed that Hamilton has been on around £15 million a season.
Lewis has a new management team in XIX entertainment so it is going to be an interesting few months to see what deal they can come to with the team. One sticking point apparently is the fact that Lewis wants to keep any future 1st place trophies that he may win with the team.
However the team keep all winner's trophies and the driver has to commission a replica.
In my opinion I think Lewis should stay at McLaren because like Mark Webber at RedBull he knows the team inside out, he has been associated with them since he was a kid and I think he is going to find it very difficult to a sit at a top team if he were to leave McLaren.
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