Hamilton slams Verstappen by suggesting he's given his engineer 'abuse'

Hamilton makes a comparison with Verstappen and Lambiase

The seven-time world champion took Verstappen as an example. Gianpiero Lambiase is, of course, the Dutchman's regular race engineer and the two have had some notable moments over the years. 

During Sunday’s race in Melbourne, Lewis Hamilton received some comments over the radio that he was not keen to hear at that moment, which he made clear in his response. However, Hamilton didn’t expect his radio exchanges with his race engineer, Riccardo Adami, to attract so much attention. The Ferrari driver emphasised that he hadn't said anything out of the ordinary or done anything crazy. To make his point, he even referenced Max Verstappen, suggesting that such radio moments from other drivers don't receive the same level of scrutiny.

"But unfortunately, you [the media] make… the conversation that Max has with an engineer over the years, the abuse that the poor guy's taken, and you never write about it, but you wrote about the smallest little discussion I had with mine," the Brit explained in China.

"I mean, naturally, everyone over-egged. It was literally just a back-and-forth. I was very polite in how I had suggested it. I said: 'Leave it to me, please'. I wasn't saying 'F you'. I wasn't swearing. So it was just at that point, I was really struggling with the car and I needed full focus on these couple of things."

"From race to race, we are going to get stronger together, and that's the most important part."

This article was written in collaboration with Esteban den Toom

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