Hamilton fell out over technical disagreements at Mercedes

Feb.23 (GMM) Lewis Hamilton’s resolution to go away Mercedes may be traced again to technical disagreements final 12 months.

This week, former Ferrari driver Mika Salo mentioned the seven time world champion’s resolution to swap Mercedes for Maranello makes little sense to him.

“I imagine Hamilton is aware of one thing that the remainder of us don’t but know,” the Finn instructed Iltalehti newspaper.

And because the new season of the Netflix sequence Drive To Survive now hits TV screens, it emerges that Hamilton, 39, was notably bruised by his recommendation to Mercedes bosses as they struggled with their 2023 automotive idea.

Hamilton started complaining of his cockpit place in 2022, and was dismayed that it remained the identical for 2023. For 2024, that challenge has now been resolved with the all-new Mercedes idea.

However it might have come too late, with the British driver solely agreeing a single-year contract for 2024 late final 12 months with an additional driver-triggered possibility for 2025.

In an interview for the newest Drive To Survive season, Hamilton mentioned: “I keep in mind complaining to the workforce and being like, ‘Look, we now have to make these modifications, in any other case that is the trajectory we’re going to go on and that is the place we’re going to finish up’.

‘Please, please do one thing about it’,” he remembers pleading. “I keep in mind they mentioned, like ‘We all know what we’re doing. You’re fallacious’.

“That was positively an fascinating second,” Hamilton admitted. “I used to be like, okay, I’ll step again, I don’t wish to step on anyone’s toes.

“Then once we bought into the season, then we spoke once more (and so they mentioned) ‘Oh, perhaps you had been proper’.”

The implication is that Hamilton misplaced religion in Mercedes’ skill to provide him a shot at successful a report eighth’ drivers’ world title earlier than his profession ended.

“I can’t actually keep in mind successful,” Hamilton mentioned. “It’s been a minute, to be trustworthy. I don’t keep in mind what that feeling is.”

In one other scene from 2023, as Wolff and Hamilton mentioned the latter’s contract extension in entrance of the Netflix cameras, Hamilton instructed his boss: “You may be right here for like 20 extra years, 30 extra years. I can’t.

“These are valuable years for me.”