Hamilton wants McLaren to help him become the best
While he has definitively lost all chances for titles in Singapore, Lewis Hamilton had already put pressure on his team, before the Grand Prix, for them to bring him back to the top and took the opportunity to remind that he was not in Formula One just for the pleasure of being there... like a certain Rubens Barrichello.
After seeing his McLaren challenge Red Bull’s supremacy in July, Lewis Hamilton observed, like most of his colleagues, that the Austrian team took advantage of the summer break to significantly regain strength, to the point of achieving the pole position/victory double at Spa and Monza, on circuits that were said to be less favorable to the RB7.
Faced with the reaction capacity of the reigning world champion team, which has nothing to envy from its historical rivals, the McLaren driver once again shows some signs of impatience and puts pressure on the men in Woking to react by next season: « I still have at least five to ten years of career left. At some point, if it continues like this — which I doubt — then my patience will be seriously tested » reports The Sun.
The Briton urges his team to find a solution to put an end to the momentum of confidence that Sebastian Vettel and his team are currently accumulating: « Seb will come back [in 2012] just as confident as he was this year, so we need to up our game. We recently had a big technical meeting and […] no one was asking questions, except me. I was saying: “Sorry, I have a few questions…”. »
The response from his team, however, was not long in coming, through Martin Whitmarsh: « I think the guys work hard every year; the nature of F1 is cyclical, as everyone knows, it comes and goes. McLaren is a great team that can recover from a bad start – many teams cannot do that – but it would be better not to have to recover from a bad start. We have produced winning cars on many occasions in the past, we have a great team, good engineers, and we are determined to get there next year. »
To that end, Whitmarsh believes that the arrival of Sam Michael will be an asset: « We are delighted to have him join us. He comes in as sporting director, so it’s a career shift for him. He has worked on the technical side, as an engineer at Jordan and then as technical director at Williams, but we made him an offer thinking that his strength lies in operational work, on the ground, with the team. Therefore, his job as sporting director is to ensure that McLaren is the best and most feared team in the world. »
So here is a speech that should reassure Lewis Hamilton, who explained, according to *The Sun*, that he does not want to just make up the numbers in Formula One: “There are some drivers who are delighted to be in F1 and just happy to be alive. […] Look at Rubens Barrichello, he seems happy to be where he is, but there are people, like me, who exist only to be the best. If you’re not striving to be the best, then you’re doing nothing.”
The statements by the McLaren driver were not well received by the fans of the Williams driver. On his Twitter account, Rubens Barrichello, however, put things into perspective: « Regarding Lewis Hamilton, some said he gave an interview where he said bad things about me. I talked to him and he told me it wasn’t true: for me, that’s enough. After so many years, I’m used to people making things up, just for the sake of making them up… »
Undoubtedly awkward, the statements of the British driver are particularly surprising considering that Rubens Barrichello is now a driver at the end of his career, well aware that it is not at the twilight of one’s thirties that one becomes the best in Formula One, and who therefore has objectives adapted to his current situation, namely helping Williams return to the forefront. Being nearly 15 years younger than the Brazilian, Lewis Hamilton must not forget that he has a long and promising career ahead of him.
