Cheeky by SkySportsF1

SkysportsF1 did something I am quite fond of, they identified a few comments made about Hamilton's departure from McLaren. I will provide a link below but will post a few belters. People really need to be careful when presenting opinions;

"Mercedes is a great partner of ours and they are a great team. But for anyone leaving McLaren, and he wants to win, I think that's a mistake because I have faith and belief in this team. Whether you measure it over the last four races, four years or 40 years, we're a fantastic team. So I would say to any driver who wanted to win in this sport: 'Come and join McLaren and aspire to join McLaren'. I wouldn't advise anyone to leave McLaren if they want to win" - Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren.

"I think it's wrong to portray that Lewis left this team. At the end of the day, you end up with a situation where you're going to separate if the circumstances aren't right. Life isn't about one person deciding anything. It's never that way. It's about circumstances. Everybody says: 'Am I bitterly this or bitterly that?' What? I'm a realist. Did we have the ability to create a situation where we could have stayed together? Categorically, yes. Would that have been the right thing to do? We didn't think so" - Ron Dennis, McLaren.

"It is his decision, although I personally don't think it is the right decision" - Jenson Button, McLaren.

"With the field as intensely competitive as ever, now is completely the wrong time to embark on such a project. As it now stands, one of the sport's leading lights seems to have been sold a dream and a promise - if he can stick out the difficult first season, his gamble may come to fruition. Yet if he doesn't, we might be watching the sad sight of a man with limitless potential and huge talent witnessing his chance to make a legacy rot away in mid-grid purgatory. That's the risk, and it is hard to be convinced that it outweighs the potential glory" - Ed Owen, The Sports Review.

"I don't see Lewis winning races in 2013 - and there has to be doubts that the car will be good enough in 2014. And it is easy for a lean couple of years to develop into something longer. Just look what happened to Jacques Villeneuve after he joined BAR having won the title in 1997. He never won another race. Lewis has got a tough task ahead of him at Mercedes. It is a gamble" - Allan McNish, Audi.

"Lewis Hamilton does not know much about racing history and so cannot learn from the mistakes of others. Perhaps he thinks that if it fails he will at least have the consolation of earning loads more money and being a bigger star, thanks to his hustling management that will sell his image here, there and everywhere. That might make him an international celebrity on a bigger scale than he is, but it will not make him a racing legend. Perhaps Mercedes will pull it off and then Hamilton will look clever, but I fear that this will be a move similar to James Hunt joining Wolf; Emerson Fittipaldi joining Fittipaldi, Jacques Villeneuve moving to BAR or Niki Lauda's ill-fated move to Brabham. History relates that you do not leave a winning team in F1 unless it is to go to another proven winner…" - Joe Saward, GP+ e-magazine.

You can read the rest, here; http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/24181/10039850/what-was-said-when-lewis-hamilton-quit-mclaren-to-join-mercedes