Lewis Hamilton makes George Russell demand after Mercedes tempers boiled over
Lewis Hamilton and George Russell qualified third and fourth for the Spanish Grand Prix and the former has called on his Mercedes team-mate for help as they look to beat Lando Norris and Max Verstappen
Lewis Hamilton has openly called on his teammate George Russell to join forces in a bid to outpace their rivals at the upcoming Spanish Grand Prix.
This plea comes in the wake of a tense moment during the final qualifying round in Barcelona, where Russell expressed his irritation over Hamilton’s track behaviour via a tense radio message.
Russell vented his annoyance with: “What the f*** was Lewis doing, prepping that lap?” In response, his race engineer urged him to concentrate on the task at hand, saying: “We’ll talk about it afterwards, head in the game.”
Heeding this counsel, Russell secured fourth place on the starting grid, though he was narrowly beaten by Hamilton, who claimed third spot marking only the second time this season that Russell has been out-qualified by the seven-time world champion.
With pole-sitter Lando Norris and current points leader Max Verstappen ahead, Hamilton is convinced that a collaborative effort with Russell could be crucial in chasing down the leading McLaren and Red Bull vehicles.
Hamilton explained his strategy, stating: “Position is everything, so I think… also, there is two of us, so hopefully we can apply pressure as a team to both of the cars ahead in order to play out something in strategy and slowly climb up. It’s all about degradation tomorrow and how you look after the tyres, so we won’t know until we get into that first run.”
Hamilton expressed sheer joy at securing his best qualifying position this season, hinting that Mercedes are inching closer to the front-runners. He gleamed: “This is another encouraging result for us as a team. Everyone has been working so hard to bring updates and improvements to the car, making incremental gains and small steps over the season so far.
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