Despite being forced to retire from 3 of the 19 races last season, Lewis Hamilton ended up comfortably beating teammate, Nico Rosberg to the title of World Champion and completely obliterated the rest of the competition as he and his team proved to be unstoppable in 2014.
With such a dominating performance from himself and his team last season, one would wonder why Lewis didn’t sign on the dotted line after being crowned world champion last year.
Fast-forward to 2015 and Lewis is probably happy he’s put his Mercedes partnership on hold a little longer…
Of course I’m referring to the prancing horses that are Ferrari. The team has made admirable gains during the winter to launch a revival of the legendary Italian team and having grabbed a shock win in Malaysia under new signing, Sebastian Vettel and currently standing in second place in the Constructors Championship, Ferrari appear to be on an upwards curve and only seem to be gaining momentum.
Although Mercedes are still outright quickest and remain the team to beat, there are a number of reasons that could be keeping Lewis’ pen from touching paper at the moment and a number of reasons why we may see the Brit make the move to Ferrari in the very near future.
First of all, current Ferrari driver, Kimi Raikonnen is without a contract with the team at the end of the season and new boss, Maurizio Arrivabene does not seem to be in a rush to keep him, despite him splitting the two Mercedes in Bahrain. Instead the boss seems to be attempting to keep the Finn on his toes by keeping his contract at arms length, encouraging him to stay at his best. Arrivabene stated, “Kimi is giving his best when he’s in a bit of trouble. This is the psychological approach”. If Ferrari decides not to sign Kimi, there will be a nice seat waiting for Lewis for sure.
Lewis is of course aware of the momentum Ferrari have on the development of their car and is conscious they pose a big threat to his current team. Considering how the winter favoured some and proved unsuccessful for others, he might also be conscious that his current team might find themselves in some trouble in the future.
Harmony in a team may also prove a factor to Lewis’ decision and his spat between teammate, Nico Rosberg seems to have continued from 2014. At times the pair has seemed to be more interested in damaging each others races as opposed to winning as a team and their race conferences have displayed the two sending childish digs to one another.
If Hamilton were to move to Ferrari, teaming up with Vettel may only lead to friction in a team that appears in perfect harmony at the moment. If Hamilton goes on to win the championship this year, himself and Vettel would hold 7 world titles between them and it’s unlikely either would be happy to be demoted to number 2 driver. Remember the Vettel and Webber years? What about when Lewis joined Alonso at Mclaren?
A Hamilton and Vettel pairing would prove to be an unstoppable force though and the two have shown they obviously get along, as can be seen from a duel interview, full of banter with the BBC. Lewis even suggested the pair could find themselves in the same team in the near future after stating, “The question is will we ever be wearing the same shirts?” Will they or is Lewis just trying to get a better contract with Mercedes? Who knows, but Ferrari is on the rise and every driver wants to drive for the prancing horse.
[polldaddy poll=8818195]
