That silence at the end of the race
After taking fourth place at the Canadian Grand Prix, team principal Toto Wolff commented via radio the final result for Hamilton: “Lewis, the good thing was that the car started performing again. Let’s continue like this.” No response from the seven-time world championa sign of rift that adds to the many launched by Hamilton in recent weeks, which have suggested – on the driver’s part – that Mercedes is not putting him in the best possible conditions to express his talent.
Coincidence or boycott?
In fact, it is not the first time that Hamilton is half-heartedly suggesting strange behavior from the team towards him. “The weekend was going well, then as always in qualifying the others raise the bar and I can’t. Suddenly I’m missing two tenths and I don’t know why”he explained to Montecarlo the English champion, who let out a little cry: “Beating Russell here was difficult and I think it will be for the whole year.”
Allegations forcefully rejected by the sender by Toto Wolff: “Mercedes has always treated its drivers fairly and transparently, only in Abu Dhabi in 2016 did we intervene by asking Hamilton not to go so slowly on purpose to allow his opponents to attack Nico Rosberg“. But it’s also true that in the race in Monaco Hamilton’s strategy was not optimalsince the undercut failed: “It was a miscommunication between us on the pit wall and we made a mistake“, Wolff cut short.
What happened in Montreal
In Canada Hamilton – on a track where he had won 7 times and taken 6 poles – shone until the decisive moment of qualifying, Q3. The 39-year-old Englishman finished Saturday only in seventh place, his worst single lap result of his career in Montreal. “The car didn’t feel the same as the rest of the weekend“, the pilot had observed, not finding a clear explanation from Wolff: “We didn’t understand what happened with Lewis.”
Thus the race arrived, with Hamilton finishing in fourth place, but finding himself on the track in the final stretch of the race with Hard tyres, against teammate Russell on Medium tyreswho in fact overtook him with ease, taking away the podium. “Am I penalized by tire choice? Yes, if I had known that I would have been fitted with Hard tires, I would have stayed out. I thought I would have the same tires as George.”
Hamilton then explained that he understood what went wrong on Saturday: “The tires worked all weekend, but then we got to qualifying and every time I came out of the pits, for some reason they were always below temperature. Each set was 2 or 3 degrees lower than it should have been. I imagine something happened with the tyrewarmers, we need to be more careful”. In short, a series of unfortunate coincidences and/or real boycott by Mercedes for the transfer to Ferrari?
