Mercedes has officially confirmed that Lewis Hamilton is joining the team and that Michael Schumacher is leaving.
There is no mention of any retirement plans for the seven-times champion so clearly he is still considering a future in the sport.
“I have had three nice years with the team which unfortunately did not go as well as we all would have wanted on the sporting side,” said Schumacher. “I wish Lewis well and for the team to achieve the success we worked so hard for in the build-up. I would like to thank the team for their trust and all the guys for their unconditional commitment. I will now concentrate on the next races.”
Lewis Hamilton said: “It is now time for me to take on a fresh challenge and I am very excited to begin a new chapter racing for the MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team. Mercedes-Benz has such an incredible heritage in motorsport, along with a passion for winning which I share.
“Together, we can grow and rise to this new challenge. I believe that I can help steer the Silver Arrows to the top and achieve our joint ambitions of winning the world championships.”
Adam Cooper F1 
Glad this move has happened. Lewis has never had a car which was substandard, and that for me really shows the great drivers. Senna, Schumacher and more recently Vettel all excelled in lesser cars. I want to see if Lewis can do that too. It’s all very well doing nicely in a McLaren that’s virtually always the 1st or 2nd best car on the grid, but no one has seen what Lewis can do when he’s really up against it. Even in his GP2 victory year he was arguably with the best team on the grid.
I’m one of those people who predicted (unlike virtually everyone else!) that Jenson would run Lewis pretty darn close. The nature of that kind of personality is that you don’t always believe TV commentators who heap praise on people. You want to see it proven with your own eyes. If Lewis goes to Mercedes and performs, I will firstly have to eat a bit of humble pie, and secondly I gain a lot lot more respect for him as a racing driver. I’ll already happily predict that Nico Rosberg will run Lewis pretty closely though (with Lewis emerging slightly on top), as I believe Rosberg is underrated.
Oh yeah… 4th Sept 9am I said…
“Lewis’ tweets this weekend were interesting, they felt like the guy was let off the corperate leash, which is a dangerous thing for a professional sports person. Given that I’m wondering if his future was decided pre-Spa and it’s not with McLaren, hence he doesn’t really care about what they think? A drive at Mercedes may make sense given Bernie’s comments about Michael not winning in his second F1 career?
Of course that may just be co-incidence, but then again this is F1, and anything is possible !”
*smug mode*
Wow, I didn’t expect this move to come off. Perhaps McLaren didn’t fight that hard to keep him given his rumoured financial & commercial rights demands coupled with his petulant behaviour every time something goes badly for him. I think he had stopped being a good ambassador for the McLaren brand.
I think he was right to leave McLaren. They were clearly incompetent and continually screwed him over. That last race was unforgivable.
Button is the better driver, thats why he’s still at McLaren
There are few sure things in life. That said, here are two of them:
1) McLaren is exceptionally rare: it wins consistently, year-in and year-out.
2) Lewis will one day regret this, if he wanted to pile-up race wins and titles (though admittedly, he’ll now be sitting atop a much larger mountain of cash).
Adam, what say you?
”My passion for winning” B***cks” its all about the money isnt it Lewis……