DECEMBER 12, 2011

Ecclestone questions Hamilton's direction

Bernie Ecclestone has joined a number of paddock pundits in calling into question whether Lewis Hamilton's management direction impacted on a 2011 season in which he seemed to lose focus and endured his worst year since his 2007 arrival in F1.

Bernie Ecclestone has joined a number of paddock pundits in calling into question whether Lewis Hamilton's management direction impacted on a 2011 season in which he seemed to lose focus and endured his worst year since his 2007 arrival in F1.

After falling out with his father and ending their management relationship, Hamilton hooked up with Simon Fuller's X1X Entertainment organisation, which also manages the Beckhams and tennis player Andy Murray as well as a host of showbiz figures.

In an interview with the UK's Guardian newspaper, Ecclestone said of Hamilton: "I think he had some personal problems during the year which affected him quite a lot.

"It depends an awful lot on the people you surround yourself with, and who are in a position to influence you. I think he just fell into a lot of people that I think weren't good for him.

"When his dad was looking after him, his dad was a bit more ... obviously it didn't suit Lewis, which was why they split, but I think he didn't appreciate how much help his dad was.

"I think it's a disaster. He gets to meet people that probably he wouldn't have met, and who have probably the wrong sort of influence on him. He's at the age, perhaps, and he has the amount of money where when he's influenced, he can carry things through, which he wouldn't normally have done."

Among other things, Ecclestone controls the release of moving images from F1 very strictly. In one incident during 2011, the rapper, Ice-T, a guest of Hamilton in Montreal, shot a video in the McLaren garage, laced with profanities about the cost of the steering wheel being more than most fans' houses, which was published on YouTube. It prompted a letter of rebuke from Ecclestone to McLaren.

"It's our fault because we tend to encourage celebrities," Ecclestone admitted. "Not so much for those of us who get our hands dirty but for all the sponsors who turn up with their guests and like to say: 'Oh, we saw whoever-it-was.'

"The difference is that we can handle them, because we're not directly involved. He [Hamilton] sees somebody like that, he admires the guy, so he'll start copying a little bit what they're up to."

Hamilton has already outlined how much he wants to press the 'reset' button and come back in 2012 focused and re-energised.