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Lewis Hamilton stormed off the post-race interview at the F1 Japanese GP when his future at Ferrari was mentioned by the reporter. The Mercedes driver had a below-par race once again at Suzuka and was not in the best frame of mind when it came to talking to the media.
The season has not seen the best of starts for Lewis Hamilton either, as this was the fourth race weekend in a row where the driver was outpaced by his teammate George Russell. This comes at a time when the Mercedes driver has already announced that he will be leaving the team at the end of the season and joining Ferrari in 2025.
As a result, there have been a few who have questioned whether Lewis Hamilton lacks the motivation to continue to perform at the highest level. This is backed up by the fact that the driver is currently 1-3 in qualifying and has less than half the points of George Russell.
The race in Suzuka was arguably a bigger disappointment because it saw Lewis Hamilton voluntarily give up track position to George Russell. In the end, Hamilton will finish the race behind his teammate, and he noticeably didn't say a word on the team radio when the race ended.
The driver was not in the best mood during the post-race media scrum. When he was questioned by a reporter whether he was looking forward to going to Ferrari because their car is faster, Lewis Hamilton was furious and left the scrum mid-way.
The reporter had questioned:
“Are you looking forward to being with them [Ferrari]? Because they’re faster?”
To which the Mercedes driver replied:
"Do you have any better questions?”
Lewis Hamilton did not take any questions after this and left the media interaction.
Lewis Hamilton doesn't think the strategy would have made a difference
In an interaction with Sky F1, the Mercedes driver was questioned if he felt that a different strategy could have helped in the race. Lewis Hamilton and teammate George Russell were on a single-stop strategy with two stints on hard tires.
Later, the strategy was switched to a 2-stopper as both drivers were pitted for a move to medium tires. In the end, Hamilton finished the race in P9, while teammate George Russell finished in P7. Talking about strategy, Hamilton wasn't sure if any other strategy would have helped in this case. He said:
“Nothing, I don’t think. I don’t know what the different strategy would have been, whether there was a reason to stay on the medium at the restart, but we still had two really terrible hard tyres to run through. A real challenge today."
He added:
“I think I picked up a bit of damage in the beginning with Charles [Leclerc] around the outside. I had huge understeering for the first stint, I couldn’t turn the car through the corners.”
The Mercedes driver has not had the best start to the season but with 20 races left, he could be expected to bounce back and do a great job.
