F1: Hamilton rants, Mercedes calms everyone down

The Japanese Grand Prix allowed Max Verstappen to return to his good habits, namely finishing first. He was prevented from doing so in Singapore by the very good race of Ferrari and Carlos Sainz, who had achieved the feat of putting an end to Red Bull’s hegemony. But in Japan, Lewis Hamilton found himself quite annoyed against Mercedes, he who had to fight against Carlos Sainz Jr to maintain his position, which put him in difficulty, because the DRS was notably given to George Russell, and no to him. But Mercedes wanted to put an end to this annoyance.

At the exit of Japanese Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton was annoyed with the strategy of Mercedes at the end of the race: “ Giving DRS to Russell while I was fighting against Sainz? I don’t think this is a good idea. When they suggested it to me, I knew they had obviously thought about it since the last race but it didn’t make any sense. I had to run as far away as possible. And I was already on my way, I was about two seconds ahead and they asked me to give George DRS. »

“It was a good little battle”

Absent, it is therefore to Bradley Lord, the head of communications Mercedeswho played the role of putting out the start of the fire after the race, in comments relayed by nextgen-auto.com : « It was a good little battle. From the moment Lewis [Hamilton] had this contact with [Sergio] Perez in the straight, that put us on the back foot – and we lost positions on the first lap. From that point on, the question was what we could save and how far we could fight from there. Obviously, Lewis drove the car to its absolute limit with his two-stop strategy, and with George we rolled the dice with the one-stop strategy, trying to see if we could make it work . Ultimately, a fifth and seventh place is better than a sixth and seventh place, and this helps us minimize the points lost to Ferrari. »

F1: Verstappen smashes Mercedes again https://t.co/ShZqMk15Q7 pic.twitter.com/2BMet17wtM

— le10sport (@le10sport) September 21, 2023

“They are in a fierce race on a difficult circuit”

« They compete in a fierce race on a difficult circuit. It’s easy to deduce a lot from these radio messages in the heat of the moment. As always, we talk about it away from the pressure and high temperatures of the cockpit during the debriefing that follows. This is where we put everything in order that needs to be put in order. », concludes Bradley Lord. Enough to put an end to this annoyance‘Hamilton ?