Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcoose
Too early to say. Better wait for silly season, and the quality of his car.
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Agreed.
Undoubtedly Leclerc and Hamilton are fully aware of the fact that, if they want to have a realistic chance to getting the 2023 WDC title, they cannot afford losing podiums. They must get ahead of Verstappen race weekend after race weekend, as the latter takes no prisoners. Once he's on a roll with his RB19, the guy is an unstoppable race machine, ruthlessly decimating the whole field. Only DNFs, a race ban, injuries not allowing him to compete during several races or a significant improvement of the Ferrari or Mercedes AMG cars performance, will stop Verstappen in dominating also the 2023 season.
As
Marcoose pointed out, let's see how the 2023 season shapes up this Spring.
If Leclerc and Hamilton remain unhappy about their current situation (team decisions/orders or performance of their cars or a very competitive team mate (with lower pay check) or all of that), the idea of moving on to either Mercedes AMG (Leclerc) or Ferrari (Hamilton) may cross their minds at times: back in clean air, a new work environment, a new team mate, know how about the current team, bigger pay check, new fans.
Drawbacks: change must be a change for the better. In the past, Michael Schumacher surprisingly moved on from 'his' Ferrari dream team to Mercedes AMG to end his F1 career, but failed to repeat his earlier success formula (P9, P8 and P13). Schumacher had become a 'has been'. Also Vettel surprisingly moved on from 'his' Red Bull dream team to Ferrari, but failed to get them a WDC (P3, P4, P2, P2, P5, P13), and ended his career in oblivion at Aston Martin (P12 and P12).
But Alonso apparently being podium eligible again after his shock move from Alpine (with his 'El Plan') to A$ton Martin, may inspire them. Tons of cash on offer may also help in the decision-making.