Great move for both teams. Hamilton's very quick but his input and teamwork seems limited and he's a disruptive influence. Replacing him with a young exciting driver that'll get his head down and work rather than throw his toys out the pram whenever something goes wrong will benefit McLaren greatly in the long run.
As for Mercedes, replacing an ageing driver with someone as quick as Hamilton should push them on to the next level.
Why do people talk about him throwing tantrums and not having input with the team or being disruptive. Do people really not get that this stuff that happens, like being angry post race, is a MEDIA story that drags on but is likely completely ignored by the team from three seconds after its said. What disruption has he caused? No input, yet he seems to get the car setup perfectly and quickly while Button seems to need Hamilton's setup help to get anywhere this year?
Button has criticised the car pretty much before, during and after every single race all year long "the balance, the tires, the balance the tires".
Hamilton says stuff after races, sometimes positive, sometimes negative, so what. He seems to work well with his engineers or he wouldn't get the car working so well so quickly.
Button seems to go out of his way to make up excuses and from my point of view tends to stick the knife in to Hamilton whenever he can. IE 100 points off the title Button refused to concede it, one bad weekend for Hamilton and Button was only too happy to announce NEITHER of them have a chance at the title now.
The press bang on and on and on about minor stories for months like they meant anything, the likelyhood is most comments post race don't ever get mentioned again inside the team.
In terms of Salary, still seen nothing concrete but going by the Sun's numbers(first and only ones I've spotted yet), basic salary was similar(12mil a year) salary + bonuses at Merc could have pushed that to 20mil a year(assuming that is for winning the title + certain number of races), but the personal sponsorship would be where the biggest increase came from.
Anyone happen to know why Mclaren only allow one sponsorship? to get a better price for team sponsors?
