Mercedes Team Leader Not Me: Hamilton

Published 01/02/2018, 10:37 AM EST

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Lewis Hamilton does not consider himself as the Mercedes team leader despite winning 3 championships with them. He says he is just a “small link in a long chain” at Mercedes. When Nico Rosberg retired after winning the 2016 Drivers’ Championship, Valtteri Bottas was given an unexpected promotion. The Finn had a solid start to the season, but eventually faded away and finished third in the standings. Meanwhile, Hamilton won a fourth title with Sebastian Vettel finishing second.

Hamilton has 4 more years of experience compared to Bottas as 2017 marked his 10th full campaign in F1. On the other hand, the Finn only made his debut in 2013. However, the four-time World Champion, downplayed talks of him being the Mercedes team leader.

He said, “I don’t look at myself as the leader of the team – I believe I am a small link in a long chain. We all play a key link. The key is making the link as strong as it can be and that’s what we have managed to do.”

2017 was a much better season for Lewis after a couple of tense seasons as Rosberg’s teammate. The frosty partnership was rife with on-track clashes between the 2. The calmer season was aided by a ‘clear the air’ meeting with Merc motorsport boss Toto Wolff during the winter.

Hamilton continued, “If you are at the office and your boss doesn’t want you there it’s going to be a shit environment, isn’t it? You want to work there but you [also] don’t. That’s just negativity drawing away from what you’re great at. That meeting was really important to reset things, so when I arrive and the guys know I’m going to be giving it everything, they work that extra bit harder, and vice versa. If there’s any negativity or question, it can only hold us back, so it was almost a purification of the relationship, and a re-start of the solid foundation we had already built years ago.”

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Dhruv George

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Dhruv George is a senior Formula One and NASCAR analyst for EssentiallySports, having authored nearly 12000 articles spanning different sports like F1, NASCAR, Tennis, NFL, and eSports. He graduated with a PG Diploma in Journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications. Dhruv has also conducted interviews with F1 driver Pierre Gasly and Moto2 rider Tony Arbolino.
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