The moment is getting closer and closer when the greatest champion of the current F1 era stamp your signature on a new contract to keep you attached to the team that has given you the tools to be. One moment, that of the renovation of Hamilton with Mercedes, that everyone takes for granted, but that less than a month after the W12 is presented has not yet been produced. Nevertheless, both parties give in to reach an agreement: Lewis accepts a shorter duration (one year with an option to another) and Mercedes, a veto to future teammates.
While talks continue between both parties, the negotiation has become in its own right the authentic winter soap opera of the World Cup on which many give their opinion. One of the last to do so Bernie Ecclestone, who wonders “how far can the influence of an individual driver go within a team?” He will “I would have made it very clear to Lewis” in case of being your boss: “You accept what we offer you now or you leave it. They are all replaceable. Only one person decides who drives here, and that’s me!”
The old big shot would have imposed his tough on Hamilton, as he tried to do in Brabham when he was its owner, although in the end they did not let him… This is how he remembers it on ‘F1-Insider.com’: “In 1983 we were champions with Piquet. I had to decide who would drive alongside him in 1984. We did an extremely good test with a young Brazilian driver named Ayrton Senna. I loved him. When Nelson found out, he was very upset and reacted like a defiant child. I didn’t love him, he recognized his potential, but I didn’t care. “
“Our main sponsor, Parmalat, refused to have two Brazilians. I weighed everything carefully: in the end, peace in the team was more important to me. But since I was also the director of the Builders Association, I made sure Senna get a job elsewhere, with Toleman. I knew he was going to be the future superstar so I really wanted to see him in F1, “adds Bernie, who had to give in. Are you sure it would have been different with the only man capable of matching Schumacher?
