Lewis Hamilton is “proud” his decision to join Mercedes has paid off, even if it felt “strange” at first.
It was a little over eight years ago that the Briton chose to leave McLaren, a team he’d been associated with since he was 13, for a new challenge at the Brackley-based outfit.
Since then he was won 72 races and potentially six world championships as soon as Sunday with Mercedes, putting him level with Michael Schumacher on seven overall.
And reflecting on his time with the German manufacturer, Hamilton admits simply being chosen as the man to replace Schumacher all those years ago was remarkable in itself.
“What’s really crazy for me is that I was brought in, ultimately, to replace Michael, which was such a strange position to be in because, obviously, I’d watched this man dominate the sport and achieve such great things and he was stopping and I was going to be taking his place,” he was quoted by GPFans.
“The guys that I worked with were his previous mechanics and engineers and what a privileged position to be in.”
Still, when Hamilton did step into the German’s seat, there was a lot of work to be done to put Mercedes into the position they took in 2014.
“They had had quite a difficult time and the car hadn’t been good,” he noted.
“I think what was really great was that, when I joined, I was personally able to put my stamp on the car and make a lot of alterations, particularly in 2013 and then we just collectively worked together.
“I knew that we would have a great engine because they had already started developing the engine before I’d even made my decision to join the team, before I’d signed the contract.
“Being that I was with Mercedes at McLaren, I was able to go to the factory, I knew what Mercedes was doing.
“I knew that McLaren was coming out of contract with Mercedes and I knew that I wanted to be with Mercedes-Benz because it’s such an iconic brand and they were so passionate about what they wanted to achieve.
“They’ve got such a great history and I knew that they had the power to turn things around.”
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Even Hamilton though accepts the success he’s had has far outweighed expectations, but it has fully justified what was a controversial move at the time.
“For sure,” he told Dutch broadcaster Ziggo Sport. “I’m naturally very proud of the decision I took.
“I think the important lessons to take from it is in life we often need to seek approval from other people, sometimes we don’t know what the answers are so we try and get it [those answers] from people around us.
“But those people often only have an opinion and don’t actually know what the answers are [either]. I was told by everyone around me to stay put at McLaren…even my dad said ‘stay’.
“And what I did at that time is I just had to listen and really try and dig deep and figure it out for myself and for what I wanted to do.
“So I came to the factory and changed a ton of things on the car. There was a great amount of respect between us, I guess because of the career that I already had.
“The guys were just so excited and we worked and bonded and made massive strides already at the beginning.
“We won our World Championship early in the second year but we continued to face every single year the same as the first year since I joined in 2013.
“We don’t slack. It’s not like we are just going to chill and arrive and be at the front. We have the same difficult conversations and we push and elevate each other.
“It’s been a dream. It really has been a dream.”