McLaren’s Ron Dennis says he never attempted to stop Lewis Hamilton from leaving the team at the end of the 2012 season after the Briton expressed his desire to join Mercedes.
Hamilton grew up with the team after they signed him as a youngster and invested thousands in his development, but despite that, Dennis says he never tried to stop the deal going ahead.
“Last year I didn’t seriously seek to prevent his efforts to explore new pastures with the Mercedes AMG F1 team – perhaps it was a necessary part of his maturation,” Dennis explained.
The 66-year-old added that Hamilton will always have a place at McLaren and admitted a sense of pride having nurtured him from rookie to champion.
“I’ll always remember his time with us very fondly, just as I’m very proud of having been McLaren’s CEO and team principal when he became world champion with us in 2008.
“I recently read a very nice quote from Lewis in which he said that, unlike other drivers who had joined McLaren once they’d already raced in F1, his apprenticeship with the team in his youth meant that he was a seed that had grown within McLaren, which I thought was an extremely eloquent way of putting it,” he said.
“Lewis knows that he’s part of the McLaren family and that, like that seed, he’s grown deep roots within our organisation.”
