Lewis Hamilton has brushed off suggestions of sabotage and foul play existing within the Mercedes Formula 1 team.
The seven-time world champion has experienced a difficult 2024 campaign so far in what is his final season with the German manufacturer before making a switch to Ferrari for 2025.
Hamilton has been majorly out-performed by teammate George Russell, whom he trails 1-8 in the qualifying head-to-head this year.
It led the 39-year-old to claim in Monaco that he does not expect to out qualify Russell again this year which has since fuelled conspiracy theories that Mercedes are favouring Russell.
Speaking ahead of a Spanish Grand Prix, Hamilton said concerning those claims: “They know that, if you look at the years, we’ve always been a strong team, we’ve always worked really hard together.
“I think it is easy to get emotional, I even commented in the last race for example just how I have faults. I think we need support, not negativity.
“I wasn’t actually aware that George was experiencing any negativity. George has done nothing but his best every single weekend and delivering for the team, so he can’t be faulted at all.
“Of course there are always things that can be better within a team and that comes through conversations, through communication, and that’s what we’re consistently working on.
“But we’re all in the same boat, we’re all working hard together and we all want to finish on a high. We owe that to our long-term relationship.”
Back in Barcelona ❤️ Buzzing for this weekend at the #SpanishGP 🙏 pic.twitter.com/i11asUGtYI
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) June 19, 2024
Mercedes Technical Director, James Allison, also weighed on the matter, stating: “I think that if you try and read into that stuff that isn’t there, like somehow he’s got a systematic disadvantage on qualifying day, that’s not true and not fair.
“So far as we can make it, the cars are identical. The engine use is identical. If the cars are different on setup, it’s because that’s what the driving engineering team on either side of the garage have iterated to.
“But they have the chance to have identical stuff if they chose. On one occasion this year and famously in Monaco, they had a different front wing on the car because we only had one available and we took the decision that we would get that wing on the car as soon as we could, and it had to go to one or the other.
“We had the conversation and Lewis said ‘no, I’ll let George have it’.”
Hamilton is the joint most successful driver at the Spanish Grand Prix with six victories alongside Michael Schumacher.
