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The newly contracted Lewis Hamilton has been on fire this weekend but the comment that seems to have caught the eye of everyone is what he said about Max Verstappen's teammates. Amongst other things, the Mercedes driver has used this weekend to blow the battle horn against his supposed rivals.
He's continued with an almost farcical campaign pushing for FIA intervention to slow Red Bull down. To take things up a notch he even commented on Verstappen's teammates and how none of them was stronger than what he had to face in his career.
The fanbase is surely divided on this but these comments are a sign of desperation from the man who dominated the sport for close to a decade but is not seen in that light anymore.
Lewis Hamilton's recent comments about Max Verstappen's teammates are a sign of a king who has lost his crown already and is trying very hard to remind everyone of his greatness.
In this feature, we will dissect what Lewis has said, check the validity of his comments, and finally give my take on where this desperation stems from.
Lewis Hamilton's recent controversial comments: Are they valid?
Calls for FIA intervention to slow down Red Bull
What he said:
Lewis Hamilton has arguably been one of the only advocates of FIA intervention to slow down Red Bull. The driver first made this suggestion earlier in the season and since then he has only doubled down on this.
The Brit said something similar this weekend as well and advocated how something like this would be for the betterment of the sport.
Is the concern valid?
Will F1 and the FIA decide on bringing in a technical directive to slow down Red Bull is up to them. From a sporting point of view, it does not make any sense. We are into the second year of these new regulations and they have not even matured.
If we are going to slow down faster teams a couple of years into a new set of regulations then where is the incentive to do a better job than competitors?
More importantly, this coming from Lewis Hamilton, a driver who won six titles in a dominant Mercedes is hard to digest. The spectrum of words to describe an FIA intervention campaign spearheaded by Lewis varies from ironical to hypocritical.
Even though Hamilton can claim that he always spoke against single-team domination when Mercedes was dominating, he wasn't campaigning a regulations change.
He was just not doing that. The legitimacy of the campaign stems from the fact that during the FIA press conference, this question was put forward to three different team principals and everyone advocated against it. Even Toto Wolff has claimed that an FIA intervention will set the wrong precedent.
Comments on Max Verstappen's teammates
What he said:
Lewis Hamilton's comments about Max Verstappen's teammates during a recent interview with Sky Sports have kicked up a storm as well.
"When I qualified half a second, six-tenths ahead of Valtteri, they didn’t say the same thing as they say today when Max qualifies six-tenths ahead of Perez. It’s blown up much more. And in my personal opinion, Valtteri, and actually all of my team-mates, have been stronger than the team-mates that Max has had," Hamilton said.
"Jenson [Button], Fernando [Alonso], George [Russell], Valtteri… Nico [Rosberg] – I’ve had so many. These guys have all been very consistent, and Max has not raced against anyone like that,” he added.
To cut a long story short, Lewis Hamilton claimed that every teammate in his career was better than what Max Verstappen has had.
Here is the list of teammates that Hamilton has had in his career.
- Fernando Alonso
- Heikki Kovalainen
- Jenson Button
- Nico Rosberg
- Valtteri Bottas
- George Russell
Here is the list of teammates that Max has had in his career
- Carlos Sainz
- Daniel Ricciardo
- Pierre Gasly
- Alex Albon
- Sergio Perez
In Hamilton's view, every driver in the first list is better than every driver in the second list.
Is the claim valid?
When we talk about this claim, let's get one thing straight. In Lewis Hamilton's overall career, he's surely had better-quality teammates than Max Verstappen. Having a double world champion in Fernando Alonso, a world champion in Jenson Button and Nico Rosberg as well, and possibly a future elite in George Russell is a very esteemed lineup of teammates.
Having said that, Hamilton has not claimed that he's had better overall quality of teammates. That's not what he's claimed. He's claimed that every teammate of his is better than what Verstappen has had in his career.
In so many ways this is a preposterous statement because for every Alonso, Button, Rosberg, and Russell, there is a Bottas and Kovalainen as well who teamed up with Lewis. And for every Sergio Perez that Max Verstappen has had as his teammate, there is a Daniel Ricciardo as well who was clearly better than Valtteri Bottas and even to an extent better than Nico Rosberg as well.
If we're going by what Hamilton claimed, it does not hold up in any which way.
After dissecting Hamilton's claims let's take a look and what has led to these remarks.
Max Verstappen's rise and Lewis Hamilton's desperation
Lewis Hamilton losing the crown to Max Verstappen
It all started in 2021 when Max Verstappen emerged as a contender against Lewis Hamilton in a car that was capable of fighting for the title. Everyone knows what happened in the final race of the season but the story of the season should have been what Verstappen had to endure and still not give up.
While the entire Abu Dhabi 2021 scandal maligned the title fight there was no denying that season who was the better driver of the two. Verstappen endured a year-long challenge where he was grossly unlucky and still continued to fight. Hamilton had also come up against a driver for the first time in his Mercedes run that he just could not break.
By the time the year ended, everyone knew who was the better driver and it wasn't Lewis Hamilton. Almost every reputed publication, the team principals, or the drivers on the grid picked Max Verstappen as the best driver of the season over Lewis and that was the moment when he lost the crown.
Max Verstappen taking dominance to a different level
Since that moment, Max Verstappen has not looked back. In a season with a competitive first half and a dominant second half, the Dutchman broke multiple records in 2022. He became the driver with the most wins in a season and even broke Hamilon's record for the most points in a season.
The dominance has only gone up a notch in 2023 as Verstappen is already on a 9-race win streak and has won 11 of the 13 races this season. Despite having a car as dominant or even better than what Verstappen has right now, Lewis Hamilton was nowhere close to being this dominant.
In fact, the numbers over a season that Lewis Hamilton garnered during his dominant years have been already decimated by Max Verstappen. as he continues to get better. This is precisely why Lewis has come out with statements that the current Red Bull is far more dominant than Mercedes was during its time.
After almost a decade of dominance, Lewis Hamilton forced to take a back seat
Arguably the biggest trigger points for Lewis Hamilton have to be the muted hype or reaction to Mercedes announcing his extension for two more years. The contract situation has been dragged out for so long that by the time it got announced, it was nothing more than a mere formality.
The kind of reaction that a Hamilton contract would generate has not really been there. Contrary to that, the focus continues to be on Max Verstappen's nine-race winning streak and his targeting a record-breaking 10th win. Since 2014, this has not happened to Lewis.
Since that season, the other two elite drivers Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso were in substandard cars and all the spotlight was on Lewis.
That continued for almost a decade until it ended in 2021 and now Max Verstappen has become the driver whose racing accolades are the ones that rule the headlines. For a driver like Lewis Hamilton, who has been the Alfa for so long, this is uncharted territory and these comments have been his way of reminding everyone how good he was.
Hamilton knows he's on borrowed time
Most importantly, Lewis knows he's on borrowed time. The driver has signed an extension of two years. He will be 40 years of age by the time that contract ends. Like it or not, we cannot deny that 40-year-old Lewis Hamilton or even 40-plus-year-old Fernando Alonso are past their primes.
To make things worse, Red Bull has aced these regulations while Mercedes hasn't. Expecting a championship challenge against a complete team like the one Max Verstappen drives for is going to be very hard. In all of this, this is precisely why Lewis Hamilton is batting for a regulations change and more importantly, going out of this way to downplay Verstappen's achievements.
If there is no drastic FIA intervention, it's hard to see Red Bull losing out to Mercedes or other teams and that's why Lewis continues to bat for a change in technical regulations before that.
Final remarks
Finally, it's almost unfortunate to see Lewis Hamilton, the most successful driver in the history of F1 punch down in weight and try to demean what a two-time world champion is achieving right now. Is there anyone in F1 that doubts what Hamilton could do in a competitive car against Max? Not, really.
Everyone knows that it's going to be a battle for the ages if it happens. This is precisely why it would behoove Lewis to not get into this mudslinging competition when there is no need for it.
