The last couple of weeks have been complicated for Lewis Hamilton. In Spa, he was one of the unfortunate few who were taken out of the race by Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado’s stupidity. Then just a few days later, BBC Pundit, former driver, team boss and controversy-merchant Eddie Jordan broke the “news” that Hamilton was eyeing up a move from MacLaren to Mercedes. Whether there is any truth behind EJ’s claims is yet to be seen, but would the move even benefit Lewis were it to happen?

Right now, MacLaren are the fastest team in the championship. As a team they’ve won the last three races in a row, taking their win total to five out of thirteen, the highest of any team. Hamilton himself has won three races – Canada, Hungary and Italy – making him equal highest with Fernando Alonso for race wins this season. Mercedes on the other hand have only one victory, and despite a strong start to the season they have fallen behind the top teams and settled into the “best of the rest” slot they served in 2011.

But any move to Mercedes would be about more than current form. Rule changes are ever-present in the sport, and when the regulations force teams to move to V6 engines in 2014 Mercedes will have a distinct advantage over MacLaren in terms of development. Mercedes might become a lot more competitive in the near future, but then again nothing can be taken for certain. To move to Mercedes through a desire for increased glory would be a disaster waiting to happen for Hamilton.

So what non-racing reasons does Hamilton have for moving? Firstly, he might be feeling increasingly uncomfortable in the MacLaren team, who may be growing tired of his various personal problems and numerous unprofessional outbursts of late. Even though he appears to have overcome 2011′s poor form, he still manages to land himself in trouble. This month he posted highly sensitive and important telemetry data on Twitter. He received a dressing down from his team, including Jenson Button, who called it “disappointing”. In the end, Hamilton’s employers may simply decide the risk/reward of keeping Lewis on board is too small, and that with so many promising young drivers swelling the ranks of the midfield his services are no longer required.

Alternatively, this whole thing may just be a career ploy by Lewis himself. When Lewis signed his last contract, he managed to get maximum money from MacLaren by flirting with other teams that expressed a passing interest in him. Now it’s time to sign a new contract, but he knows that MacLaren’s current economic policy won’t allow his megastar wage bill. He may just be employing the same trick twice. Whether this works is yet to be seen.

Hamilton’s change in manager certainly has something to do with this. After hiring David Beckam’s Hollywood agent as his manager, replacing his own father, Hamilton’s form fell off a cliff. After struggling through this, said agent now says he has a plan to turn Hamilton into a worldwide star, “the next Beckham”. This is probably the most absurd potential reason for a move, but it is a potential one nonetheless. Hamilton has slowly become one of the most glamorous drivers in Formula 1, tweeting pictures of himself hanging out with US rap stars on a regular basis.

Whatever his reasons, right now moving would be a stupid idea. Mercedes are still a team that can’t quite get it right, whilst MacLaren are a team still comfortably on the top of a very competitive pile. With many commentators predicting MacLaren are slowly edging towards building their own engines, Hamilton would be a fool to jump off a ship that’s currently staying immaculately afloat. No matter how much his giant wage bill stands to be reduced.