Assuming you can even tell that he's shown diminishing team skills, there's nothing to say that a change of team and environment wouldn't make a huge difference. I found the blog/article by a McLaren engineer that someone posted quite interesting in that respect because in it he described a long association that saw the boy become a man and then some disillusionment that he changed over time. Having grown from boy to man at McLaren, perhaps there's a real benefit in going straight to Mercedes as a man?
Question - does a Man go on a rant about a perceived slight, about being "disrespected"? personally I think not and I'll bet we'll see that in the years to come - there's more to indicate he can't do it then there is to indicate the opposite, fact.
Apples and oranges...
