Lewis Hamilton’s recent move to Mercedes, which was announced last week has, inevitably generated a lot of media interest with some wondering whether Hamilton has made the right move. I had the opportunity to speak with some of the youngsters involved in “Britain’s Next F1 Star”, currently screening on Sky Sports F1, to get their thoughts and opinions.

Seb Morris said “If the team I was in, was consistently winning races, and consistently fighting at the top, I would not wish to go anywhere else unless it was a completely safe bet that I was going to do even better than the current team I am in. ”

Josh Hill added to that saying that Hamilton may have wanted a new challenge, noting “I think that although you always want to be in a front running car, after a long stretch with the same team I would want to see how I perform in another car with another team. It’s nice to know that you can produce the same results in another situation.” Alice Powell agreed with Hill about new challenges, but also said that “you have to always look at your current situation as well. It is always a tough one, and I am sure Lewis’s decision was not an easy one to make!”

Jordan King made an interesting point, saying that “McLaren is a great team with a long pedigree and it’s hard to leave a team like that.”

My own feelings is that Hamilton was inevitably going to be leaving McLaren at some point or another. Hamilton had been at McLaren for six years, and continuing with McLaren at 2013 would have taken him into a seventh season. The problem with Hamilton, well not a problem, but rather a point worth making, is that he achieved so much in so little time that he did not have much else to achieve at McLaren. He won the Drivers’ Championship in his second season with McLaren, for him, there was not much else to achieve there.

There is the argument also that Hamilton will not do well next year. Even so, I think he is taking the option of “short term pain, long term gain” if the 2014 engine situation turns out to be a big advantage. A three year contract takes him to the end of 2015, although let us not forget that in recent time, Mika Hakkinen won his first championship in his sixth year at McLaren, Michael Schumacher won his third championship in year five at Ferrari, whilst Fernando Alonso won his championship in his third year at Renault. The point is that many will make rash and quick judgements after year 1, but in reality it will be a long term project for Hamilton and Mercedes like those mentioned above had. Once Hamilton has the team moulded around him in two years, then he can go for a championship.

The news last week that Formula One Management would be directing this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix was greeted well by fans. What it meant today is that we were given a lot of new camera angles which made for some fantastic viewing. The new camera angles have been well placed as well to give a better sense of speed, such as at 130R where the direction change is telling. Trust me, if you haven’t see it yet, you will go “wow” the first time you see it. There seems to be as a lot more camera angles this year from FOM compared to previous years with Fuji Television, although that may just be an allusion from myself and not the actual truth.

One camera angle that I loved as well was the slow-mo camera angle of the cars at the final chicane, it distinctly reminded me actually of one of the shots in the F1 2012 game trailer, the shot looked “game like” rather than “real life like”. And that is a good thing in my opinion. They’ve definitely done a fantastic job with the camera angles this year in catching the raw speed and they should be applauded for it. No more hand held cameras this year!

Whilst I did love the camera angles, what I did not like was Sky’s director deciding to cut away from the World Feed and the stunning camera angles to show Natalie Pinkham interviewing a driver. I know what they look like, you don’t need to show me them, I can use my imagination to see what they look like. I first mentioned this in June, but this has been going on all season. There’s no need for it, unless someone is describing something critical, thus requiring a cut-away. Kimi Raikkonen’s KERS failure was a good example of a sensible cut-away from them. Their problem for me is that they have too many cameras. Too many times are we seeing FOM cut to pit-lane and next to them is a Sky person with a camera directed at the same driver. Why? It is a complete waste of resources when FOM are already doing an adequate job of capturing the action. Leave the “Sky cameras” to before and after the session when they are needed more.

The final point here concerns the Japanese fans. Despite the television audience declining, the hardcore faithful in Japan was as strong as ever. How many Grand Prix’s do you see probably in the region of 50,000+ for practice, probably more? Not many. Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Korea and several more struggle to get that number for the race alone. So, why are we going to those races? To satisfy a few rich-hungry billionaires? Let’s go to countries where people want, crave and demand more Formula 1. I would happily see two Grand Prix’s in Japan or Australia if the grandstands are going to be full irrespective of session or day.