McLaren’s Ron Dennis believes the Woking outfit could have retained Lewis Hamilton, rather than losing him to Mercedes, but they weren’t prepared to do so at any cost.
Whilst Dennis was coy on the exact reasons behind Hamilton’s departure, he says McLaren weren’t going to push to keep the 27-year-old because he didn’t believe it was the right thing to do under the circumstances.
“I think it’s wrong to portray that Lewis left this team,” he told The Business Voice magazine. “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.”
Dennis, who gave Hamilton his chance in F1 after signing him at a young age, remains supportive of his now former driver, but still hopes McLaren can beat the 2007 champion on-track.
“Whatever people choose to do at the end of a contractual period, the professional thing to do is to be supportive of the other side,” he added.
“We don’t wish him every success at Mercedes – that’s understandable, as he’s obviously going to be a competitor – but we don’t wish him anything negative.”
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