After a season punctuated by unreliability and mistakes Lewis Hamilton says that McLaren didn’t do a good enough job to win the 2012 World Championship
In Abu Dhabi Hamilton dropped out of the lead with a mechanical issue for the second time in five races.
“It’s not the easiest, because I’ve been doing my best this year,” said Hamilton. “It’s been a tough one, we’ve just had lots and lots of problems. Too many problems to be able to have won. We’ve not done a good enough job collectively to have won the championship.
“In actual fact this weekend we had the pace to get a one-two. I’m not really sure what Jenson was struggling with this weekend, but we had the strength in the car, the ability – the car was there this weekend. I think in the last four or five races we’ve had something fail on the car, even if we’ve finished the race, so it’s been a bit unfortunate.”
Hamilton said he was really happy with the performance of both the car and himself in Abu Dhabi.
“It wasn’t faultless, I did have a very wide moment at one stage. My brakes weren’t very well up to temperature, so I locked up into Turn 8. But after that it was going really well and the car was just a dream to drive at the time. I was cruising really, and I was pulling away.
“We had some kind of fuel issue where the car just stopped and died on me. But it was still a good weekend for me, I really enjoyed it. At the time it felt fantastic in the car, it’s a shame we couldn’t continue because I felt we were in with a good shot of a win. Nevertheless we have a couple of other opportunities.”
Hamilton remains positive about the last two races in the USA and Brazil: “We hadn’t brought any upgrades, we’ve hopefully got some upgrades coming to the next race. The guys have been working very hard. I really hope the car performs great in the next two races, so we can get back up there at the front and maybe finish a race up at the front for the very last time.
“It was a close one today, but I’m still very happy with the job I did. I couldn’t have done any more.”
Adam Cooper F1 
Sneaky dig at Jenson shows how unpleasant Lewis really is. I wonder how long next season he will be smiling & saying how well he is doing at developing the Mercedes.
I used to like Hambo when he first arrived in F1, but, fame and $$$ have gone to his head. Seems to forget who put him where he is. Will be interesting to see how he performs at Mercedes..
What kind of assine statement is that? “Seems to forget who put him where he is” Hamilton has been with McLaren way before his F1 days. He knows the business and the business now is to screw over the driver that’s leaving. McLaren will be good next year with Sergio and JB but they won’t win anything.
Well, it was McLaren who picked Hamilton up originally. I look at Hamilton now, and see a guy who seems to have forgotten his roots.
Seem like reasonable comments to me.
Next year he probably won’t have the chance to finish as high as he might in a McLaren, on the other hand he will probably have the chance. to finish more races.
To slightly mangle the old saying, “To finish ‘in the points’, first you have to finish.
As Lewis Hamilton is about to depart, McLaren team seems to have reach the same point where they were prior to his debut with the team in terms of reliability woes.
Seeing Lewis retire while leading the race twice in last five races was reminiscent of 2005 season, when more often than not Kimi and JPM retired with technical issues while leading the races.
I think that Lewis leaving McLaren is a huge mistake, for both of them. I hope Mercedes can give him a car to fight next year, because he deserves it, and F1 too.
Why is everyone having a dig. Lewis is the best driver and it is mclaren who
Will have there head in there hands ( Martin Whitmarsh ) and I wonder how JB will perform on his own
JB happened to win a WDC without Lewis..
JB won in a souped up car.