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“WTF” Lewis Hamilton Moment Triggered Major Tensions With His Former Teammate: “The Screengrab Showed the Kind of Things…”

Published 12/18/2022, 3:10 AM EST

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via Reuters

Throughout his racing career, Lewis Hamilton battled alongside many drivers, and in many of those races, the British racer decisively defeated several of them. Only three drivers, Nico Rosberg, George Russell, and Jenson Button, have ever defeated Lewis Hamilton in the same vehicle. Two of these three had a bitter rivalry with the billion-dollar man, to the extent that Jenson Button disclosed some of the major situations back in 2017.

Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button worked together at McLaren as teammates. From 2010 to 2012, the pair raced side by side. Following that, Hamilton headed to Mercedes and flourished there like a star. In 2017, Button wrote on his Telegraph page about how Lewis Hamilton had once made team telemetry data available on social media to indicate why Button had out qualified him at Spa 2012.

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“Quite what was in his thinking, I couldn’t say,” wrote Button. “Certainly any displeasure he was showing was aimed at the team, not me, but I ended up being collateral damage because you don’t make telemetry public. You just don’t. I wasn’t gasping in horror concerning his use of ‘WTF’ [‘what the fuck’],” Button added. “I like to see drivers expressing themselves.”

Showing his disappointment at the move made by Hamilton, Button further added, “The screengrab showed the kind of things you work hard to keep hidden from your rivals. I made my feelings known about that. The official version was that I was ‘disappointed’. Had I gone with my unofficial reaction, it would have made ‘WTF’ seem very tame indeed.”

Whether you are Lewis Hamilton’s colleague or a rival, there is no doubt that you would push yourself to the maximum if you were to fight against him. This is the degree of rivalry that Hamilton’s competitor has always encountered.

George Russell reveals how he had to push his limit while racing Lewis Hamilton

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George Russell, who beat Hamilton in the same car for the third time in history, explained what it takes to beat the seven-time winner. Russell had 265 points when the Silver Arrows drivers met up at the Yas Marina Circuit, while Hamilton had 240. The gearbox failure forced Hamilton, who finished in the worst position of his Formula One career, to retire at the Abu Dhabi GP, but the younger British driver continued and earned a P5, finishing the season in fourth place.

via Reuters

Sharing his delight to race alongside a legend of the sport, Russell said, “I feel incredibly fortunate to be with a team such as Mercedes and teammates with Lewis. He’s really pushed me to my limits as a driver. I’ve learned a huge amount going up against somebody like him in the same car. There is no better reference. If you told me that at the start of the season [I’d finish ahead], I would have been incredibly proud and incredibly happy with that, because nine times out of 10 if you finish ahead of Lewis Hamilton, you’re probably going to be World Champion.”

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WATCH THIS STORY: Lewis Hamilton Finds Himself in an Unusual Situation With His Teammate for the First Time Since 2007

Lewis Hamilton’s 2022 season was a terrible one, but as we all know, winning doesn’t define a champion, it’s losing that elevates you to the ranks of the greats, which Hamilton indisputably is. With all this, we expect that Hamilton will rebound well next year and will win his eighth championship title.

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Written by:

Aditya Srivastava

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Aditya Srivastava is an F1 Author at EssentiallySports. Although he has completed his undergrad in History, due to his passion for the field, he couldn't hold himself back from entering the world of Sports Journalism. Being a huge fan of Formula 1, Aditya has taken up multiple internships and freelancing gigs where he got to pen down his thoughts about the most prestigious form of motor racing in the world.
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Edited by:

Varunkumaar Chelladurai