Picture Credit: Twitter/@LewisHamilton
The Mercedes Petronas Formula one team hasn’t had a great start to the season with two podiums in the first three races. Their car still needs work but with the drivers like Lewis Hamilton and George Russell in their paddock, results are bound to come through. This duo recently posted a picture where both Russell and Hamilton are with their surfboards.
The picture was posted by Lewis who had captioned it, “Next up: getting @GeorgeRussell63 to skydive. ” But all wasn’t fun and games during the race between these as the All-British driver-duo recently was caught in a controversy during the Australian Grand Prix.
During a late safety car, Lewis Hamilton was apparently caught questioning the team when they provided a faster pit stop to Russell which led to the youngster’s first podium. Hamilton was quoted saying, "You guys have really put me in a difficult position." The seven-time F1 champion was leading his teammate throughout the race but the pit stop pushed him ahead. Hence there were speculations about his comments targeting Russell.
But after the race, the seven-time champion clarified that his comments were directed toward the ‘overheating of the engine’. Hamilton said, "Basically, I couldn't race for the position because the car was overheating, so I had to back off. We were over one second off on Friday, and it wasn't looking spectacular at that point. We did some great work overnight to qualify on the third row and then a great start. I was up in third and it felt great to be fighting or to feel like we're fighting for a podium at that moment.
"Obviously we couldn't hold with the pace of the Red Bulls. Whilst we haven't necessarily improved the car over these three races, I think we've really extracted the most we could points-wise. From my side, I let the team down in the last race and didn't get the points, but to come away with this result is great."
Hamilton also praised Russell for going head to head against Sergio Perez. He said, “To get ourselves fifth and sixth in qualifying, to have progressed as we have and to have reliability, we definitely didn't expect to have a third and fourth. George did a great job today. I got to see some of the battle with him racing Perez and I wish I could have been in it.”