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F1 pundit Bernie Collins found Lewis Hamilton's contrasting comments, after qualifying in Japan and Singapore, interesting. In the Sky F1 podcast, there was a discussion about what the teams would be looking to do with the growing intra-team driver rivalry.
In the last few races and in general this season, there have been instances of competition between teammates like Lewis Hamilton and George Russell who are close to each other. This was highlighted a lot more in Suzuka when both of them had multiple wheel-to-wheel exchanges.
Talking about the teammate rivalries including the one in Ferrari between Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, Bernie thought Lewis Hamilton's comments after qualifying in Japan and Singapore were interesting.
Even though the Mercedes driver qualified at roughly the same position in both races, he was critical of the car in Singapore while being much happier in Japan. The only difference in both of those races was that he outqualified Russell in one, and lost to him in the other. Bernie said:
“I think there’s a few interesting battles, the Mercedes we’re speaking about, obviously, but there’s a few. The Ferrari boys, the McLaren boys, it’s all the same, they’re very, very close. It’s interesting, Fred Vasseur [Ferrari team principal] actually said something very interesting on the grid, he said: ‘They’re never both happy, whichever one’s ahead is happiest’, which is very, very true."
She added:
“I find that interesting with Lewis’ comment, particularly after qualifying, I don’t think he actually qualified too differently to the position he qualified in Singapore. But in Japan, he was ahead of George, and in Singapore, he was like five positions behind George, but I think actually, his qualifying position was pretty close – and he was much happier with qualifying in Japan."
Lewis Hamilton and George Russell's battle got intense in Suzuka
The Hamilton-Russell battle got a bit intense in the 2023 F1 Japanese GP. It started with Russell pulling off a move against Lewis at the chicane after 130R. This was followed by the Mercedes veteran getting the place back on the very next straight.
Unfortunately, it did not end there as the two duked it out again in the second stint where the younger driver was pushed off the track at the spoon curve.
With two extremely ambitious drivers in the same team, Mercedes has got a management nightmare in place and it will be interesting to see how they will come out of it in the coming season.
