Lewis Hamilton may have had some regrets already about his decision to join Mercedes next season, according to his McLaren Formula One team principal Martin Whitmarsh.
In an interview with the official Formula One Web site, the Briton also said Mexican Sergio Perez probably did not know what is about to hit him as Hamilton’s replacement.
“I think he has on occasions, yes,” said Whitmarsh when asked whether 2008 world champion Hamilton, who is replacing retiring seven-time champion Michael Schumacher at Mercedes, might have regretted his decision. “Probably, when you make a decision you have to tell yourself that the decision is made so you have to look forward. You say ok, that it is in the past so you don’t spend too much time thinking about why.”
Mercedes have won one race, in China this year, since they took over the title-winning Brawn GP team at the end of 2009.
McLaren have won five Grands Prix this season alone and are the second most successful team in terms of wins in the history of the sport.
Whitmarsh said it would be an emotional farewell with Hamilton after the last race of the season in Brazil later this month and added that there had been some such moments already since the driver decided to leave.
“I hope he thinks today that he’s made an awful mistake and I hope he thinks that next year. He’s made that decision and he has to live with that decision,” Whitmarsh said.
Perez is joining from Sauber, where he has had three podium finishes this season, but has also failed to score a point in the four races since his move was announced.
He will be joining 2009 world champion Jenson Button at McLaren and Whitmarsh expected the 22-year-old to learn everything he could from the older Briton.
“When Sergio gets to Australia [for the first race] in 2013 he will arrive with the kind of pressure that he can’t imagine right now,” the team boss said. “At the first race, if he is not on the first two rows and fighting for a win the pressure will start to ramp. He doesn’t know that yet.”
Whitmarsh said Perez could expect to spend a lot less time in Mexico and a lot more in the simulator, working with engineers and on improving his fitness.
“He will turn up considerably fitter and stronger than he is today,” he said of next season.
The team boss repeated his view, expressed at the weekend in Abu Dhabi, that while he expected Perez to get the job done, he could not be sure of how good he might be.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier