Lewis Hamilton nightmare for colleagues in free practice in Madrid
If he wasn’t the nightmare of his colleagues, he was close: in the Friday free practice of the Spanish GP in Madrid, Lewis Hamilton often found himself in the middle of the track during his tire cool-down laps. Something also noticed with some annoyance over the radio by some drivers: among the most annoyed is certainly his predecessor at Ferrari, Carlos Sainz, who, speaking to his pit wall after having to abort a flying lap behind the 41-year-old Englishman, explained how Lewis “never makes any effort” to try to give way to other cars. Specifically, the home driver had noted how dangerous Hamilton’s maneuver was, who let him pass right in the middle of turn 12, the elevated Monumental where – unlike the parabolic turn 3 of Zandvoort – there seems to be a single ideal racing line.
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It was not the only case. The Ferrari driver also had close encounters with Yuki Tsunoda, who in response showed him a thumbs up after asking, surprised, on the radio “What is he doing?”, and also with Nico Hulkenberg, who found himself behind a Hamilton going very slowly on the racing line before the right-hand corner leading onto the pit straight: the German later described the situation as “a bit dirty”. In short, the drivers are asking for a bit more attention from the seven-time world champion at Ferrari and – as often happens lately – Ralf Schumacher has added fuel to the fire.
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Ralf Schumacher’s attack
The 51-year-old former Formula 1 driver and younger brother of the legendary Michael, now commentator and pundit in the paddock for Sky Germany, has attacked Hamilton’s attitude without mincing words: “What struck me more than anything else is the man in red who seemed to hinder everyone because he often drove in the middle of the track, Lewis Hamilton. I don’t know why he does it so often, but it was already noticeable in 2015. Driving slowly is actually unsportsmanlike towards the other drivers.” Lewis Hamilton was not investigated by the Race Direction for impeding maneuvers towards colleagues, but this is a rather normal situation in free practice: in case of infractions in qualifying, instead, the “classic” penalty imposed by the FIA stewards is a three-place grid drop.
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