Lewis Hamilton's Big Gamble

So Lewis Hamilton has finally made his mind up and will be leaving McLaren at the end of this Formula 1 season to join Mercedes. Part of me is glad that the will-he won't-he soap opera is over, but of course another part of me knows that it isn't over. In fact, it's probably only just begun.

Hamilton is a great driver - probably the fastest in Formula 1. He is pretty much unbeatable when his car actually works. But he's also a bit of a diva, focusing just as much on his off-track popularity as his on-track results. It's says a lot that he dumped his father as a manager to join Simon Fuller's management company. When Hamilton wins, he's the most gracious driver in the world, effusively thanking his team for doing a great job and praising the heavens. When he loses, he's like a smacked puppy, despondent and sullen, refusing to take off his sunglasses for interviews. Hamilton needs to grow up, basically. He's no longer a young buck pushing everyone of his way: he has serious competition, not just from Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and Red Bull's Sebastien Vettel but from his team-mate, Jenson Button, whose consistency means that while he may not grab as many wins or headlines as Hamilton, he gets more points. And you can't win an F1 championship without points.

The change in teams has been a long time coming. It's no secret that Hamilton has been unhappy with his car's poor reliability and his team's poor strategy. But while it's correct that McLaren have let Hamilton down from time to time, the reverse is also true: Hamilton's brash driving style has prematurely ended a few races and he has left himself open to unnecessary penalties. Just a few weeks ago he bizarrely tweeted sensitive racing data. It hasn't been a pretty break-up, for sure. He may have won the Championship in 2008 after narrowly missing out in 2007, but since then his end-of-year finishes have been poor (5th in 2009 and 2011, 4th in 2010).

And so Hamilton evidently thinks that he will be better off with Mercedes, a decent team but not one that is challenging for the championship this year and probably won't next year either. It's a huge gamble for Hamilton to place all his chips on one spin of the wheel, betting that his new team will adapt well to the 2014 season regulation changes. What will happen in the interim - in next year's competition? Can we expect another twelve months of drama? How will Hamilton cope with the likelihood of not challenging for any race wins? Expect to see those sunglasses a lot.

Of course, if it all pays off them Hamilton will have every right to be smug. He'll have proved his critics wrong. But if Mercedes don't perform, it's difficult to see how Hamilton could ever have any hope of becoming a double World Champion. Mighty big stakes are being played for...