As this thread bumped up again. Not much related to Nico, but to the comments above in relation to the 2017 season



....So now it’s about how Hamilton, Lowe, Wolff and Niki Lauda move on in their relationship; and whether Lowe moves on to Williams. That’s why its interesting that Hamilton has gone on the offensive here.



This interview is classic positioning. It indicates Hamilton flexing his muscles, now that he is the undisputed top dog at Mercedes; from now on everything has to be his way. He is likely to be paired with Valtteri Bottas and the danger there is that if there is any sign of Bottas getting the rub of the green from the management, Hamilton will highlight the fact that Wolff is also Bottas’ ‘manager’, in the sense that he has overseen his career while delegating day to day management to someone else. It’s all a subtle mind game, sometimes not so subtle.

Hamilton is in a strong position anyway for several reasons going into 2017. First the likely challengers, Red Bull, have two hungry young drivers who will be fighting each other as he did with Rosberg. That relationship could easily turn toxic. In contrast Hamilton aims to have it all his own way at Mercedes in the title fight. But there is also an indisputable racing reason why it looks good for Hamilton next season and that is the tyres. One of the main reasons why F1 has regulated for wider tyres in 2017 is not because of ‘looks’, it’s because of physics. Pirelli struggled to get the science and technology right to produce F1 tyres to the narrow dimensions laid out in the F1 rules as they were. Things improved a bit over the years, but the fact that high tyre pressures had to be mandated in 2016 shows that they were far from operating at the optimum. The science behind the 2017 tyres is simple; with a wider tyre, you can spread loads more evenly, you can manage temperatures and degradation much more effectively.



Pirelli has the science for that size and shape of tyre and so the racing will benefit. They won’t need to change much in terms of compounds to achieve this. All the signs from 2017 tyre testing so far are that it all just works much better on a larger format tyre and the drivers will be able to push much harder in races, like in the old days. So much the better. And one of the drivers who will benefit most is Lewis Hamilton. One could argue that of all the drivers in F1, he is the one who has been most held back by the limitations of Pirelli using a tyre size that didn’t suit their technology because of the way he drives and what he can do with a car. Once reunited with tyres that all drivers can push to the limit, he will be at the top table of those who are unleashed to be their at their very best.



Hamilton will be hard to contain in 2017 and he knows it. He needs the team fully behind him to achieve the fourth title and the all time pole record which he is close to achieving and he’s locking antlers now with Wolff to get positioned for 2017. It’s a strange dynamic; the boss signs off on a $30m + million pay packet and bigs up his superstar driver, but behind the scenes there is a battle. It’s happened in many relationships like Ron Dennis with Senna or Prost, Enzo Ferrari with Niki Lauda and others. Jean Todt and Michael Schumacher were unusual in having a harmonious relationship in public and private.