APRIL 21, 2024

Former teammate slams Hamilton for excuse-making

Lewis Hamilton's former Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg has slammed the seven time world champion for rolling out constant excuses about his 2024 troubles.

Hamilton went into the Chinese GP lambasting critics who talk sh*t about him - but he then impressed by being P2 in both sprint qualifying and Saturday's short race.

However, by Saturday afternoon for the real qualifying session, he had slumped to a woeful P18 - and quickly blamed an experimental car setup.

We have to (do that) at the moment, said the 39-year-old.

In this sprint, George (Russell) and I had very similar cars, but then we tried to experiment - I'm one way, he's the other.

Speaking to Sky Deutschland in Shanghai, Hamilton's former teammate and nemesis, Nico Rosberg, suspected the British driver was rolling out a cheap excuse.

Lewis is 1-4 behind Russell in qualifying this year, and every time he says it's the setup. To me that's an excuse. Clearly he made a mistake - one that shouldn't happen to a seven-time time world champion.

Russell seemed to back Rosberg's suspicion of mere excuse-making, contradicting the claim by Hamilton that their setups were massively different in qualifying.

We both went in the same direction, Russell said. There's only a slight difference. We both changed our setups a lot after the sprint, but in the same direction.

Rosberg thinks Hamilton is in a difficult phase right now, as some are questioning whether Ferrari has made the right choice in ousting the on-form Carlos Sainz for 2025.

He's also only half a part of the Mercedes family now, the German said. At some point, Toto (Wolff) will be saying he's not allowed to look at the data anymore.

Former Red Bull driver Robert Doornbos thinks the situation is even embarrassing for Hamilton and Mercedes, while Ziggo Sport commentator Olav Mol said: "The difference between Russell and Hamilton is far too big.

You don't often see them in a pair like at Red Bull or McLaren.

(GMM)