Lewis Hamilton has addressed a radio message from team principal Toto Wolff at last weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, ahead of his home race.
The seven-time World Champion enters the British Grand Prix this weekend on the back of a very frustrating few days at the Red Bull Ring, which ended with him finishing eighth.
Hamilton was very unhappy in Austria with his car and his opponents, who he often complained about during the race.
Last Sunday, Hamilton was constantly complaining about the performance of his car, whilst he also complained about how many drivers were exceeding track limits.
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Wolff ultimately got onto the team radio and told Hamilton to get on with his job and focus on the race, something which caught many by surprise.
Wolff very rarely speaks to Hamilton in the way he did last Sunday, given that he usually doesn’t need to.
As a result, their radio conversation was a talking point during media day on Thursday, where the Mercedes driver was asked for his thoughts on Wolff’s comments.
Hamilton quashed any suggestions of a negative environment in the team and instead insisted that Wolff’s radio message was his way of “trying to encourage me”.
The 103-time race winner actually praised how “direct” Wolff and himself can be with each other, something he labelled as the “best thing about our partnership”.
“The best thing about our partnership is that we can be direct with each other,” Hamilton said, as reported by GPBlog.com.
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“And Toto, he’s just an out-and-out racer. So he was just trying to encourage me. That was his way of doing it. We always learn from our experiences. Both on my side, I’ve reviewed my comments and where I was at mentally. And we’ll make sure that I adjust that for the future. And yeah, I feel supportive.”
Hamilton heads to Silverstone certainly targeting a significantly better weekend than he had in Spielberg, especially as it’s his home Grand Prix.
The Stevenage-born driver will certainly be targeting a podium at the very least on Sunday, something which would delight the British crowd who’ll be cheering throughout the weekend for the Briton.